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Origami is the ancient Japanese art of paper folding. Oru is Japanese for folding and kami means paper. By the year 794 AD, origami was a respected art and the designs created by masters were complex and beautiful.
No special paper is needed for origami but a medium-weight colored paper works best. Basic origami deals with shapes such as an origami envelope or a box. Many people consider animals to be the most fun origami. A simple origami animal is the fox. This old, traditional form has been used for hundreds of years to teach beginners the art.
Begin by cutting down the paper into a perfect square. A 6 inch x 6 inch or 8 inch x 8 inch square works well but any size square can be used. The medium-weight paper provides a little stiffness to help the folds keep shape.
The first fold is a diagonal fold. Bring one corner of the paper up to the opposite corner and fold down the center so you have a triangle. Fold the triangle in half, bringing the long ends together so you are left with a smaller triangle.
You now have a triangle with two closed ends and one open end. Fold up one flap of the open end to meet the other end of the longest side. Turn the paper over and do the same with the other flap, halving the triangle. The triangle is now one-quarter the size of the original triangle.
Fold the closed end of the triangle about a quarter of the way up toward the end with 2 flaps. This is the tail. Take the side with two flaps on one end and three flaps on the other and fold it a quarter of the way across, the same direction as the tail. Stand the figure up so the end with three flaps is up and push down the center flap creating the head and ears.
Follow along with this video.
 Posted 5213 day ago
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