• Cost – Free if you get instructions online and use paper sitting around the house. Less than $20 if you choose to buy paper and a book
• Caution – may cause uncontrollable rage and feelings of inferiority
• Video instructions may be easier to follow than an illustrated book
• Don’t expect to master the art of origami in an afternoon, but expect to have fun along the way

This past July, it rained A LOT here in Nova Scotia. Actually, rain could no longer describe the incessant cloud of mist and humidity that prevented my hair from drying completely or the house from feeling like a barn. So when I woke up one morning and saw that there would be no sun again we decided we could either clean our home or find something to do. While scrubbing off shower scum together could conjure up great conversation, we were looking for something a little more fun, something to get us out of the rain funk. For whatever reason, origami was the answer.

We didn’t have any origami paper or instructions to begin, so we bit the bullet and headed out into the rain to get an instruction book from Chapters (in the Crafts and Hobbies section) and origami paper from Michael’s (which is actually NOT in the huge scrap-booking paper section).

We started out in the beginner’s section of the book and attempted to create an origami bird sitting on a rock. Our second attempt was the classic origami crane.

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SHE SAID:

Being the craft loving geek that I am, I was excited, yet hesitant about the fun to be had with ancient paper folding crafts. I had my suspicions that origami could be challenging and I was not disappointed.

I am not the type that can easily follow technical instructions with diagrams. I’d rather be physically shown. So when Brad suggested a book, I secretly panicked inside. Knowing how challenging origami could be, though, I obliged to make the experience more pleasant for him, since he is craft hesitant. We bought official origami paper at Michael’s, but if you don’t care about the neat designs, save yourself the money and grab a sheet from your printer or an old newspaper. Just make sure it’s not too thick.

Our first attempt was of a bird sitting on a rock. Other than a few wrong folds, it ended up looking pretty close to the picture in the book.

Note: be sure to make really good creases. Don’t wimp out. Drag that nail across the paper with no mercy! Also, don’t give up if it feels like you have King Kong hands like Brad that are always in the way.

Our second attempt at the classic origami crane began with the book. However, after one too many reverse folds gone awry, we – surprise, surprise – resorted to YouTube. This made life MUCH easier. We narrowly avoided failure and ended up with a cute keepsake of our afternoon.

The Japanese believed that if you folded 1000 paper cranes you would be granted one wish. Only 998 more to go!

HE SAID:

How hard could it possibly be to fold paper a few times to make a crane? That’s what I thought as we ventured out in the rain to buy our supplies. Little did I know that I was in for a big surprise. I decided that it made more sense to buy an instruction book to learn from rather than watching how-to videos online. I thought the pictures plus the written instructions would be a good combination for beginners like us. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize there was a whole new vocabulary to learn before the crane was to emerge from my paper.

One thing to know about origami is that not every fold is going to be used immediately. For example, you could fold your paper in half, but then in the next step either unfold it or reverse the direction. It doesn’t make sense at first because it seems like nothing was accomplished with that step. The important thing to remember is that every fold has a purpose, even if it takes a few steps to figure out what it is.

So after a few tries at a beginner level creation, it looked as if origami had won the battle. I couldn’t seem to wrap my brain around reverse inside folds, or the way the illustrations were presented. Somehow we managed to come out relatively unscathed. Then we moved on to the crane. Anyone who attempts origami is going to want to make a crane.

The crane kicked my butt.

After tossing my heap of mangled paper to the side I caved in and hit the internet for some how-to video goodness. We both found this much easier than the book. Once we found a video that was easy to follow, we were off to the races. The cranes turned out really well, and in the end we conquered origami.

Don’t let me scare you away from trying this activity out. If you go into it thinking that the process is the fun part regardless of the outcome, you will enjoy yourself. I liked the challenge, even though it was harder than expected, and the satisfaction of actually making something was worth it all.