Origami: Simple Heart

6:12:00 PM Unknown 0 Comments

For this week's post, I decided to learn how to fold an origami heart.

It's one of the more traditional paper foldings in Japan, and when I realized it was one I hadn't learned yet, I had to try it out! While it may look pretty simple at first glance, like a lot of origami, I learned that there is more to this little heart than meets the eye.

Try it out for yourself here:

The Heart

1) As always, find a thin, decorative 4 x 4 sheet of paper. For today's heart, naturally I chose red.

2) Turn the sheet to the white side and fold it horizontally and diagonally. Unfold.

3) Fold both sides in to the center fold, like so:

3) Fold the bottom-most corners up to the center fold so that you form a triangle. Do this to both sides. Unfold.

4) The folds you've made should now make a diamond in the center of your shape. Fold the left and right edges of your shape into the corners of the diamond. Unfold.

5) Fold in all corners of your shape.

6) Now here's where it gets a little tricky. Pinch in your shape on both sides, as shown below.Then, push the bottom of your shape onto a flat surface so that you form a diamond.

7) Flatten the triangles that are against the flat surface horizontally, and you should get a heart-ish shape like this:

8) So now you have a heart that looks a little too pointy. Fold in the corners of those top two points.

9) Finally, do a reverse fold on those points so that the heart is curvier. Conducting a reverse fold means pushing the corners into the shape so that they aren't seen, like so:

10) And voila! You have yourself an origami heart in just ten steps. It wasn't THAT hard, now was it?

Try it today!

Origami

Going back to my roots: Origami crane

11:45:00 PM Unknown 0 Comments

As many people may know, I'm half Japanese. Born to an Okinawan mom and a California dad, it was sometimes hard growing up between two vibrant, racial spheres.

Obviously, both had a significant impact on me. Though I grew up in the states, and as Americanized as me and my siblings inevitably became, my mom made it her mission to keep her children as culturally aware as possible.

I was raised with an American education, but also attended Japanese school after-hours. There, I learned how to read and write basic Japanese, and studied the importance of Japanese traditions. Every day my mom spoke to me in her native tongue. I replied mostly in English (mostly out of laziness), but nonetheless - I grew up loving my culture regardless of what anyone else thought, even attending obon dances in the summer.

Since moving to Missouri, I have to say it's been a tad difficult to feel "true" to myself. In a place where few people know the depths of Japanese culture and the only real "ramen" within a 100-mile radius is 10-cents at Walmart, I've realized that my American and Japanese identities go hand in hand - I can't possibly have one without the other, though in the past I've tried to compromise.

That being said, for this post, and hopefully for the duration of this blog, I've decided to get back to my roots in the simplest and most effective way I know how: with origami. I still remember the days sitting in a cramped desk in Japanese school, mindlessly folding sheet after sheet as my classmates and I added to a pile of colorful and quirky creations.

In crude terms, I see origami as an easy way for me to sustain the "Japanese" half of me, even from the Midwest, a thousand miles from home. Perhaps more importantly, the practice offers me a couple minutes of quiet and calm during a semester where I can't seem to stand still long enough to catch my breath. I hope to see my paper foldings get more and more complex as time goes on, and to offer step-by-step instructions to readers who want to try it for themselves!

And what better way to start than with the classic paper crane?

The Crane

1) Find a thin, 4 x 4 paper sheet. The more decorative, the better!