INSPIRATION NATION // DIY ORIGAMI FLOWER CURTAIN

First off, I haven't yet decided where would be the perfect setting for this craft project to revel in full glory. My initial idea was to use it as the title puts it, a flower curtain. I had fantastic visions of friends walking in and recognizing this from one of the many snapshots that I sent them of my behind-the-scene crazy woman workings. But then while I was actually photographing the whole thing, it occured to me that it would pose as gorgeous replacement of a bed's headboard. That's positive though right? The fact that I'm unsettled about where to hang this curtain is what makes it so flexible. So use it at a whimsical party for your girlfriends, for your little girl's room or to add that tipsy dimension of fantasy to your own bedroom or workspace. This is bound to look ravishing!

Espcially when people notice they are not real flowers and that are so, so many origami flowers strung together lovingly by you in hopes that you could transition yourself back to when you could wear as many tutus and tiarias as you'd want in a day.

We could still do that though. I know I could!

The kind of origami roses I used for this project are a little different than the normal origami rose tutorials. The toughest rose being called the Kawasaki rose even of which they have several versions. We also have a standard rose. But I chose a simpler kind for this project which looks equally pretty and it's called the Bird-Base Rose or the Twisty Rose because the entire effect of the rose comes from twisting the folds at the end.

You could use any light-weight craft paper for this. Since it's Spring, I specifically chose pastel colors from a huge bundle of colored A4 copy paper. I also made the roses in two different sizes to add a little visual interest and alternated the colors between pink and yellow.

You could leave out the leaves but then if I were you I'd think hard on that one! The leaves are so easy as well, the only setback being the project is time-consuming. But think of having a gatehring of friends, maybe pizza-delivered at your doorstep, chilled summer drinks,humming your favorite tune and voila. you wouldn't even notice you just made 24 roses and 48 leaves. At least that's as many as I made. :)

DIY ORIGAMI FLOWER CURTAIN

A.For the flowers 

You'll need:

1.Colored craft paper cut into squares of two varying sizes.
2.A very determined pair of hands.

I saw this flower's tutorial over at this site which led me here. I love following picture instructions instead of video but the pictures had me lost in one of the final steps so I watched a bit of the video and got back on track again. It was really so simple and I probably felt confused because I gave a try at origami after more than a decade!(Last time in 1st grade probably and now fifteen years later, whoa)

1.Start by making two diagonal valley folds. (A valley fold is when the crease your created makes the paper go down like a valley. Actually that sounds like gibberish but I'm pretty sure you know what I mean. If you don't then have a look at the pictures and you'll know ;)

Those ^^^ are valley folds. I'm defining them for origami newbies. You see how the valley folds intersect each other and the point of intersection makes the paper funnel down?

Then make two mountain folds along the North-South and East-West axis. Mountain folds are the opposite of valley folds so the crease makes the paper point up.

Make sure you've made sharp creases. If you have, then when you try to fold the paper, it will very easily collapse in this shape.

This is how it looks at the sides.

Congratulations! You've now done the square-base. We'll now go onto making the bird-base.

You see the center crease? Fold the right edge of the and left edge to meet the center crease just like it shows in the picture above.

Fold the triangular tip above down making a sharp crease,

Flip the paper, Unfold the creases you just made in the previous step and then repeat the same on this side: so fold over the left and right edge to meet the middle crease and the triangular tip which you had just folded over (in the previous step), fold it now onto this side.

Unfold these creases too. Now lift up the bottom tip of the rhombus and collapse the four edges of a diagonal that is beginning to form (as you see in the picture below)...

So it forms a diamond shape.

Repeat on the other side.

And you should end up with this. And that's what you call a bird base! The bird-base is used as a preliminary for many other origami crafts.Turn over the right flap to the left as shown in the picture below.

And you end up with this.

                          Now lift up the bottom half and fold it over to meet the the top.

                                    So now you have your paper like this picture below.

                                                                  Flip the whole paper over.

                                                And fold over the right flap down to the left side.

Now follow the indication below to fold over the East crease down to the south crease. This will form a digonal crease as dotted below.

At this point your paper will be in a really awkward position but keep going on and you'll see what we are upto in a bit. ;)

Now fold down flat the indicated flap in the below picture as shown.

You should have something that looks like this.

Move the paper 90 degrees clockwise.

And repeat the same steps. So meet your East crease down to your south crease and fold down flat the successive flap.

Repeat this for the remaining sides. If you lost me at this point, either look at the pictures below or follow this vid.

I've just done my third side below.

And now the fourth. So we have a paper screw-driver emerging from the base. :D

Flip the whole paper over.

And fold down the tips of the star to meet the center.

Get back to our screwdriver side again and we are almost finished....going onto...our most exciting step!

Give your screw a nice twirl from the center and you'll see a rose begin to form. You can twist tighter according to your liking.

But that's not a delicate rose it it? It looks like a very punk rock chic rose. So let's make it softer and more feminine.

Curl down the pointed edges with the tip of a pencil or a toothpick or even your fingers.

There you go! At this point, you've done a great job and if you don't want to make many many of these you could use this as a gift topper or a cake topper or even affix it to a straw for a festive touch to your day.

But if you're ready to practise, I promise you you'll get the hang of it and will be churning a dozen in no time!

Let's move on to the leaf, shall we?

B Origami Leaves

You'll need:

-Green craft paper rectangles, in slightly varying sizes so the leaves look a touch more natural when glued behind the roses. Mine was roughly 2.5 inches by 2 inches for the largest sized leaf.

-A pair of scissors

1.Fold the rectangle in half.

2.Unfold :D

3.Bring the left and right edge over to meet the middle fold.

4.Fold over in half again.

5. Fold over a leeeetle triangle from the edge.

6.Start following the traingle with a diagonal accordion fold.

7.Unfold the paper again.

Cut out a cute little leaf shape.

I added a bit of light watercolor to my roses. the darkest tint in the center of the rose and fading as it sprials out. I didn't do that for leaves though because I'd been crafting solo and painting 48 leaves and waiting for them to dry would be a crazy wait for me, so: no.

Remember my intermediate work scenes. I uploaded this one image to instagram. At this point , I could only stare at so many flowers but I knew I needed to get work done.

C. ORIGAMI FLOWER CURTAIN

You'll need:

1.White thread. I mean white is the closest to looking invisible, so white thread it is! You could intentionally use yard or twine but that's upto you if you like the thread to be high on the visibility factor.

2.Your colossal collection of flowers. Actually, it isn't too colossal. I could fit mine of a foam tray that I snatched from underneath a bunch of bananas just so that I could pretend someone got fresh flowers for me in a tray.

3.Needle, a ruler/measuring tape and a pair of scissors

No that's not my bedroom. That's the dining and that was the curtain's home for a while. It seemed happy though.

I have very few to nada  pictures of this process which are not in the least significant because I'd been driven mad with the excitement of near-completion, so please forgive me for that. :|

I started by measuring out the length of the thread I need for my curtain. This was around 3/4th of the entire height of the door. Then I spaced out my roses. (six for each strand as I had initially planned and I planned to have four such strands which equals 24 flowers). I found that seven inches apart from the center of one rose to the center of another to be th best distance to my liking and began working.

I know you didn't ask but just in case you want to see some quick calculation work on this project, here its:

6 big pink roses
6 small pink roses
6 big yellow roses
6 small yellow roses
Grand total: 24 roses

2 leaves for each flower: 24 x 2 = 48 leaves.

One strand: 6 roses, alternating between big and small roses.
4 strands: alternating between pink and yellow to fit the width of the door frame.
Hope that was easy to follow. xo

You'll want to make sure that you make your thread run through the entire axis at the back of the rose because if you just thread the needle through the center the rose will slump on the thread later. I learnt this after a few inferior attempts at threading. :D

I taped them with Scotch's Magic Tape just above my door's frame and let them free fall. If I plan to keep them playfully dangling at my door I will probably make a taseel or fringe banner to cover the tape. It's not visible but it would still add a touch more flair, don't you think? :)

Thank you for staying through out the tutorial!

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