In this post, I reflect on the family crafting experience from 3 years ago. When the world was amid the pandemic, and we have been exceedingly cautious not only because of this but of our family circumstances, I was looking for different ways to make time at home enjoyable for our little ones. I tried doing simple origami with them. However, they did not have the patience to fold paper with me. They liked playing with paper creations when I was done with them, and this brought me comfort. This gave me the idea to make leaves, pumpkins, ghosts, bats, and candy and use them as components in greeting cards. They enjoyed gluing them on brown construction paper. The idea has not been to make something fancy but to introduce origami and crafting and have fun. At the time, we took pictures of our creations and sent them to our family. I would say that we are starting a card-making tradition.
There are many origami papers to choose from. I opted for the following product from Amazon:
At the time, I liked it because it had 1100 sheets in various colors. It has been 6×6 inches, which is large enough for kids to experiment with and for me to cut into more miniature sheets for cards. I have worked with much smaller sheets of paper before. However, I found that cutting these sheets into smaller ones proved to be more cost-effective. I liked the product and for black Friday bought several more sets.
To optimize my paper cutting, I have used the following cutter tool from Amazon:
I did have to replace the blades for this after some time.
A few origami sources that I have found inspirational in our projects. I will make a separate post about origami channels that I like. I periodically check for new videos and ideas.
How To Make a Maple leaf Origami | DIY Maple Leaf – YouTube – A simple maple leaf. I like making the larger 6×6 version as well as smaller ones. I challenge myself with how small I can make them.
Easy Origami Leaf Tutorial – DIY – Paper Kawaii – YouTube – I made many of these leaves of different sizes. Our daughter has been making art with them the following fall as well. I may still have some left from that batch.
I enjoyed this leaf tutorial as well. It is in a short format; hence I am embedding it here.
Origami Ghost / Paper Crafts For School/ Halloween Crafts For Kids/Halloween Crafts With Paper – YouTube – I have made these in different colors, and it has been fun to add them as elements to our Halloween cards.
Origami Pumpkin – Origami Easy – YouTube – Halloween would not be complete without pumpkins
[Origami] – How to make candy – YouTube – Halloween candy, also in different colors.
Here are samples of what we have done at that time:
Our little daughter admires the card that she made with mommy.
There is still time to make new Thanksgiving cards this year.
These are the building blocks:
I have been experimenting with different sizes, colors, and shapes.
It is time to make many cards.
