This is the second origami object that I remember learning how to make, and liked it enough to memorize the folds. It’s just a little lily. On a few occasions, I’ve attached pipe cleaners as stems and made a bouquet.

I received an email one day from a guy who wanted to make origami lilies for his wife for their first anniversary. Apparently he had obtained my email address from someone from MSU, and decided to give me a call. He came by the building on my lunch one day, and I provided him with many kinds of white paper, white with glitter, white with long fibers, white w/pink, etc. We sat in my little windowless tomb for a good hour making flowers. Apparently, he wanted to replicate the white lilies they had at their wedding.

He was trying so hard to be romantic. I have to admit that I was sitting there thinking, “She’d better get more than paper for her first anniversary, or this boy’s in TROUBLE.

I hate making origami boxes.  Compared to a lot of the pieces I’ve created, boxes are nothing.  They’re easy, simple, even juvenile.  However, i must admit that I am the WORST box maker in the entire world.  My good friend Jeanne Drewes, former Assistant Director for Access and Preservation at MSU, now working for LC, is an amazing box maker.  Me, I hate them.  I’ll do critter, I’ll do unit origami or even kusudama, but please, don’t ask me to make you a box.

This pig is a shape that I find comes in hand quite often. I worked with an extremely talented, passionate soon-to-be librarian who honestly annoyed me to death with her constant need to remind me of all of the wonderful things she did, knew how to do or had plans on doing.

Ugh.

So, I started gifting her with my beautiful origami pigs. I thought it was an ingenious way to project my true feelings, without being mean or cruel. Other’s may call that “passive aggressive”.

Yes, i said it. This is probably the MOST irritating comment made in regards to origami, every! I blame it all on the Little Caesar’s Pizza commercial that aired in the early 90’s, I think.

This is, of course, not a flying lizard, but a crane. Cranes are a symbol of longevity in Japan. The Japanese myth that if one folds 1000 paper cranes, their wish of health will be granted. This was made famous by the story of Sadako Sasaki who was immortalized in the book, Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, written by Eleanor Coerr.

As with most people, the crane was the first object I learned to fold, I think. I believe I was about eight or nine years old.

It was suggested to me that I start an origami blog. I have to admit that my first thought was, “Oh my god, that is SO geeky.”. It took several days for it to dawn on me…that…”Oh my god, I AM so geeky. So, here we are.

Since this is an origami blog, I would think that it would contain a whole bunch of pics. I only have so many, and even though those unschooled in the art of origami can’t tell, I’m not really all that good! So please, if you leave me a pic link in a comment, I will post it here along with any text that you wish. For now, I’m going to pick a pic out of my file every day (if I remember!).  Thanks!

Here’s a pretty kusudama piece to start: