Kusudama Spring

As I said in my previous post, I had a 15 year old birthday to go, so I had to get the debutant a gift. The only problem was that... I didn't even know the girl! My mother is an English teacher and one of her students was throwing a big party for his daughter and invited me as my mother's escort. And so I was with this big problem in my hands: how to gift someone you never saw?

Then I remembered that I love origami and recently I made some to give as a present to a friend of mine. Mother also agreed it would be a nice gift. Here you have the finished score:

Kusudama is an old kind Japanese origami. It is not only one paper folded into a full shape, but a lot of origami folded and put together to obtain a bigger marvelous piece. In ancient times, people used to put some essences or even medicinal herbs to perfum the room. That's why it's called kusudama, "kusu" means "remedy" and "dama" means "ball".

But I'm not here to brag about it. Do you wanna know how to fold one of your own? Let's start!

First, you need pieces of paper colored on both sides. I used 7cmX7cm squares. We need 30 pieces, like this:

Second, you need to start folding it:

Fold both diagonals:

Turn over the paper and fold two point to the center, like this:

Then, fold in half:

On this almost triangle, fold one diagonal:

Fold the other diagonal:

Then fold diagonals on the other side as well:

Now just unfold the side parts and you have:

And you'll need 30 of them:

Now it's the funny part: start assembling!

Until you have a full 5 piece flower:

This is the one I made for my friend:

Hope you enjoyed this how to do! If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me! I'll soon post other origami I made!