Today I've got a great Valentine's Day craft project for you, origami hearts three different ways. To make them all you need is a couple of pieces of paper and a little patience. Although I don't think any of them are particularly hard the last one is a little tricky so I've put them in the order of difficulty. I think the purple origami heart is the perfect place to start if you're a beginner.
One: Simple Origami Heart.
1. Take your origami paper and and fold it in half to form a triangle. Open it out and fold it half again the other way. You should now have divided your paper up into four triangles.
2. Fold the top point down to meet the centre point where your previous folds meet.
3. Take the bottom point and fold it up to meet the top of your paper.
4. Take the right hand side of your paper and fold it up meet the centre crease.
5. Do the same on the left. You should now be able to see a heart shape.
6. Flip your heart over and fold over the left and right points. Do the same for the top two points and flip it back over. And there you have your finished origami heart.
Easy, right?
Two: Origami Heart Bookmark (perfect for the bookworm in your life).
1. Take your piece of paper, place it colour side down and fold it half, fold it in half again and open it out.
2. Fold the bottom edge up to meet the centre crease.
3. Flip your paper over.
4. Fold up the left side to meet the centre crease. Do the same for the right. You should now have two triangles.
5. Flip it back over and bring the point of the triangle up to the top edge of the paper.
6. Turn it over again. It should now look like the top left picture. Open the two red rectangles and press flat to form triangles.
7. You should now have two small squares either side of the triangle you've just created. Fold these in to make two smaller triangles.
8. Fold the top of the peaks down to make even smaller triangles.
9. Turn it back over and either fold back or cut off the sides to form your finished origami heart bookmark.
I like to cut the sides off mine as I find them too bulky when they're folded but you could easily leave them on if you don't mind. It's totally up to you.
10. Pop it on a book and get reading.
Origami Heart with Wings.
1. Take your origami paper and place it colour side down (in this case red) and fold it in half and half again. Open it out and lay flat.
2. Fold the bottom edge up to meet the middle crease.
3. Next fold the top edge down to meet the middle crease.
4. Flip it over. Fold the left edge into the middle to form a triangle but leave the bottom flap (yellow) behind. Do the same for the right and side. It should now look like the bottom right picture.
5. Flip it over. I'm showing it upside down as well in the picture so you can hopefully see what's going on a little bit better.
6. You're going to fold the red strip in half. As you do this it should open up and reveal the back of your paper (yellow) and two flaps. As you open it press down these flaps to form two triangles. You should now have a strip (yellow) running across the back of your heart with two triangles (red) in the middle of it.
7. Next fold in the edges of your strip to make the corners of your wings.
8. Finally fold small triangles in the top to form the heart shape.
9. Flip it over and you're done. You should now have a sweet origami heart with wings.
How cute are they? I think my favourite is the origami heart with wings. I could've made a whole bunch of those. It's the combination of the yellow and red that make it.
Give it a go, make that special someone a beautiful origami heart this Valentine's Day and let me know how you get one. I'd love to see pictures.
P.S. You can find more craft projects over on my Pinterest page things to make and do.