Day 54

This was just a crazy day, and I can honestly say that I almost decided to skip tonight's craft, even stop forever because it was just one of those days where I didn't want to deal with anything, let alone trying to figure out what kind of craft to do!  But then I remembered that life has good days and bad days and you have to take it for what it is, and keep going.  So that's what I did.

I didn't get to even think about a craft until 8:30pm, which is pretty darn close to my bed time, so I rushed around looking for something and decided on a Origami Suncatcher.  I did a two colored one this time and I had help from our cat Cody!  All in all, I'm really glad I took the time to do it, though I did rush and it's a bit sloppy.  But it grounded my thoughts and Cody had me laughing so it was really a great stress reliever for me.

I started with a sheet of orange and a sheet of red origami paper:

I folded each and was left with 8 rectangles for each color, but I only used four of each color:

I started folding each one, and Cody supervised, he licked the paper accordingly and at one point walked over them, getting them stuck to his feet, and freaked out.  I was laughing to hard to be mad:

Here is the finished suncatcher, notice Cody's paw of approval on the left:

Another shot of the finished suncatcher:

Day 47

I don't remember what grade I was in, but it had to be maybe 6th or maybe 7th, our class took a field trip to the Springfield History/Art Museum, or the "Quadrangle" as it was known.  I remember it pretty vividly, I know I had a lot of fun, but one thing that really sticks out in my mind was the Japanese artifacts.  There was all kinds of cool things, and we had two activities.  One was doing the Japanese Signature Stamps, or Hanko Signature Seals, that was pretty cool, but the thing I really really enjoyed was the origami we did.  We all made an origami cup, and actually were able to put water in it from the water fountain and drink from it!!  Since then I've always enjoyed dabbling in origami, it's just so great how you can make so many fascinating things just by folding paper.

When I saw this book "Origami Suncatchers" I was intrigued.  The folding is pretty simple and they designs in a window will be very pretty.  I plan on covering all the bedroom windows in them, just because I can.  And from outside, it will probably look fun.  Or crazy, I guess it depends on who's looking at it!

Here are the supplies I used:

First you take 2 pieces of origami paper, fold them in half horizontally and then in half vertically.  Then you cut along the folds to create 8 smaller squares.

 

Then you take each square, turn it so it's a diamond, then fold the left corner to the right corner like so:

 

Unfold it, then take each corner and fold it in toward the center like so and glue them down:

 

Keep going until they are all done and look like this (only glued, forgot to glue this one before the picture!):

 

Next you put glue on the lower right triangle and glue another triangle to it, then the left triangle as seen here:

 

 Keep going until they are all glued, and then hang in the window!!  (It's dark out, so would be pointless if I do that now!):