Awesome Origami

This book of Japanese patterns is great for making your own origami sculptures. It’s packed with 200 sheets of 6-inch paper squares printed with intricate designs in shades of blue and white with solid colors on the back. Great for making collages or papier-mâché projects too.

These unique wallets feature a minimal aesthetic inspired by origami. Each is crafted from Italian vegetable-tanned leather that’s been cut and folded at 45-degree angles to create pockets for coins, bills, and cards. It comes in a pocket-friendly Compact version and a Long model, big enough for an iPhone 13 Pro.

Artist Chris Conrad spent weeks folding this 1:1-scale human from a single uncut piece of paper. The figure has detailed scales and wings, and carries a tiny dragon in a second color. The time-lapse video shows how this incredible creation came together, starting with making the 19×19 foot sheet of paper with his friends.

Romanian origami artist Patrick Alberto Vraja shows off an awesome paper sculpture he created of a Blakiston fish owl, based on a design by Katsuta Kyohei. He folded the amazing bird entirely from two layered 150cm x 150cm sheets of tissue paper.

The American Museum of Natural History and OrigamiUSA celebrate the holidays with a truly unique Christmas tree. The 13-foot tree has been decorated with over 1,000 handcrafted origami models inspired by gems, minerals, sharks, whales, and dinosaurs on exhibit throughout the museum. Photos by D. Finnin / AMNH.

SAGA is developing an innovative shelter design that could be used by astronauts on the moon. Designed to survive extreme weather conditions, it packs up small for transit and expands to more than five times its original size when opened up. It’s designed to land on-site fully outfitted with furniture, food, water, and resources.

Puppeteer Barnaby Dixon is known for his hand puppets like MANU and Spiky. Barnaby was asked to oversee the puppetry for a staging of The Book of Dust – La Belle Sauvage. In this behind-the-scenes video, he shows of the larger mechanisms he’s developing for birds and quadrupeds. We can’t wait to see the finished animals.

With a little practice, tossing a boomerang can be a fun and rewarding outdoor activity. In this clip, boomerang expert Victor Poulin shows us how to make a boomerang that’s safe to toss indoors thanks to its paper origami construction. If you want a handmade wooden boomerang, be sure to check out Vic’s shop.

Amanda Ghassaei created this wonderful this online plaything which lets you create virtual origami constructions and view them in 3D. You can choose how flat or folded the virtual paper is, and select from a variety of models to tinker with. You can also import SVG or FOLD files, and export both the 3D models and folding patterns.

Origami artist Juho Könkkölä created this incredibly detailed statuette of a samurai warrior from a single sheet of paper. He posted a video showing his process on an earlier samurai sculpture, which involves lots of folding, holding bits in place with binder clips, wetting and drying the paper to hold it in place.

Looking for a fun and challenging activity to do at home? Artist Byriah Loper’s book is filled with designs and techniques for making some incredible folded polyhedral paper sculptures. You’ll need a variety of different types of paper, a bone folder, and a few other supplies to complete your own paper art. Definitely not for beginners.

Builder Phil Vandelay needed a door to separate two spaces in his workshop. Rather than just go with a traditional rectangular design, he fabricated a metal frame which folds into triangular sections when opening and closing it. The design was inspired by this one he previously saw online.

Thestory takes us inside the workshop of artist Jang Jun-ho (aka “PaperBuild“), who has made incredibly detailed and vibrant origami and cut paper sculptures of everything from mechs to helmets to swords an articulating Infinity Gauntlet. Turn captions on.

Researchers from MIT developed a tiny flat robot which folds itself into a different shape when heated, scampers about, then dissolves itself. They’ve also created a variant which could be swallowed in a capsule and used to perform surgery or deliver medications inside your body.

Watch the Airigami team assemble one of their latest creations at the Virginia Museum of Natural History. It’s a 20-foot balloon acrocanthosaurus, accompanied by balloon plants and insects. More photos here.

Graphic designer and origami artist Yosuke Hasegawa folds paper bills in such a way that the person on the bill ends up wearing a headgear. He’s even made trading cards of his moneygami.

Multi-talented artist Brian Chan from the MIT Hobby shop has created a wonderful award-winning collection of complex, intricate origami insects, made from uncut, single sheets of paper.

Artists Larry Moss and Kelly Cheatle have developed the unique art of “airigami”, which they describe as a combination of sculpture, puppetry and origami. Check out their website to see more.

Artist Etienne Cliquet creates intricate paper cut designs, which measure less than an inch wide, then unfold (and fold) to form new shapes as water gradually invades the paper via capillary action.

Takauki Hori printed these skeletons of endangered species onto translucent paper. When flat, they just look like a bunch of random bones, but properly assembled, they form a 3-dimensional skeleton.

Papercraft can often be pretty simplistic, but Brian Chan’s intricate creations were all made by folding alone; not a single cut was made on any of them. We want the WALL-E one for our office.

We all know the value of a dollar at this point, but sometimes it’s good to see the less serious side of money, so please enjoy the creative stylings of this dollar bill origami art. (Thanks, Stephanie!)

Spacecraft meets papercraft with this Space Origami set, which includes 120 sheets of folding paper and a 32 page book with instructions for rockets, shuttles and astronauts.