I Give You My Heart(s)

 

Just a quick warning that this post contains nothing but utter crafty nonsense...

Every so often, when I get totally swamped with work and other responsibilities, I catch myself making something super crafty and cheerful.  Yeah, I know how ridiculous that sounds since my day job is an elementary school art teacher.  But I mean besides all the normal artsy, cheerful kiddie projects I teach on a day to day basis.  Um, yeah.  Anyway, I caught myself making tons of these heart flowers the other day when I had many other things I should have been doing.  Excuses, excuses, right?

I was asked to come up with a Valentine's themed craft project for staff at my school.  I normally shy away from seasonal art projects curriculum wise, but this was meant to be a fun and therapeutic quickie craft for teachers.  I was game.  I have a memory of seeing a folded flower made of hearts like this on the interwebs some time ago, but I can't find exactly what I remember seeing.  So I know there's probably something out there like this.  If I find it again, I'll link.  Anyway, this is what I came up with from that memory.  A folded paper flower made up completely of hearts.   And I decided to share a little tute for all you lovely folks out there in internet land.  (Plus I had fun taking photos and playing around with Picnik before it becomes defunct.)   

 

I used the origami square base as my starting point.  I use this square base for lots of things.  It's a handy little fold.

1. Start with a square.  I used mostly scrapbooking paper, but I also had a little bit of painted paper leftover from another project.  For illustrative purposes, it's nice to have one side of your paper patterned and one side white.  My squares were 4" x 4".

2. Fold in half, patterned side of paper together.

3. Fold in half again, other side, patterned side of paper together.

4. Open up.  You will see a cross on your paper.

5. Fold in half diagonally, white side of paper together.

6. Fold in half diagonally again, white side together.

7. Open up paper and pop center of paper back.

8.  Now this is the tricky bit.  Fold in sides of paper.  You can sort of see how the paper wants to fold.

9.  Push in the sides all the way until they meet and push the top and bottom down flat.  This is an origami square base.

 

10.  Now that you've made the square base, it's time to cut it in to a heart.  Keep the folded point facing the bottom (this is the center of the original square).

11.  Cut a heart, keeping the folded point intact.  No worries if it's lopsided.  Many of mine were.

12.  Open it up and admire.  It almost looks like a four leaf clover.

13.  Repeat all of the previous steps and cut more.  I cut each heart a tiny bit smaller than the last as I went along.  I also used about five squares of paper for each flower.

 

14. String on to piece of wire.  I twisted a little knot in my wire first to keep the flower in place.  The I pushed the wire through each piece.  I twisted the end tightly to keep all the heart petals together.  Please ignore the kitty paw in the last photo.

 

My wire wasn't strong enough to hold up my flowers, so I twisted it around a bamboo skewer to make my arrangement.  I also "fluffed" up my flowers by pinching the folds again.

 

Make lots and put some place pretty to enjoy!

 

I couldn't resist putting my bowl of oranges in the pictures.  It was just too perfect.  The origami square base is a great starting point for all sorts of things.  And you could cut any shape actually, not just hearts, but the timing is right for these.  I love making things out of paper.  It's so simple and satisfying at the same time.

Happy Valentine's Day, friends!