Origami Ornament

I don’t do crafts. Well, I don’t do crafts until I’m supposed to be studying for the GRE, and all of a sudden, I become a crafting queen. I know someone out there can relate.

What started out as a great idea a couple of months ago became a “well, I invested money in all of these supplies, and I’m running out of time, I had might as well make these ornaments.”

I am just like many of you. In October, I thought that I was going to have so much time to do so many things in preparation for the holiday season. Oh October, how you trick me every year. Before I knew it, it’s December, and all of those events that I planned in October are finally happening, and they are coming faster than I can prepare for them.

One of the upcoming events is a get together that I am hosting for the spouses in our military unit. It will be a lovely brunch and ornament exchange. It’s actually a pretty simple event. I don’t plan extravagant events. Those are lovely to attend, but they are not in my wheelhouse to plan and execute.

Our event will have about 20 spouses. It will be catered, and it will be at a convenient place on the island. The way I see it, if you’re not doing something extravagant, it should at least be convenient for your guests.

In addition to hosting the brunch, I wanted to give each guest an ornament to take home. If I was a better planner, I would have ordered ornaments from Etsy and called it a day. However, back in October, I thought it would be cute to make these origami crane ornaments instead.

I am now a few days away from the event, and it is time to get my hostess gifts prepared. Fortunately, they are easy to assemble!

I commissioned my good friend’s daughter to make the cranes. I gave her plenty of notice, and I paid her for her time. (I love to teach kids that their art can be a revenue generator.) We ordered the plastic balls from Amazon, and all of the other supplies came from Daiso (which is like our Dollar Store.)

The hardest part of the whole process is threading the needle. It doesn’t help that I now need glasses. (That’s another topic for another blog.)

What you need:

1: origami cranes

2: plastic balls – they come in halves

3: clear thread – the thinner the better and a needle

4: small bead for the bottom

5: glitter – which I couldn’t find so used stars instead

6: masking tape

7: ribbon

I didn’t end up using the glitter glue. Maybe I can use it for another project, or I can give it away.

How do you assemble?

Step 1: run the clear thread through the bead and tie a knot around the bead.

You can barely see the clear bead. I should have taken a picture of the bead against a red or green crane. My apologies.

Step 2: from underneath the crane, where you see the crease, you’ll want to thread through the crane where the needle will come up through the “back” of the crane. Make sure that when you poke your needle and thread through that you come straight up and through the crease. If you don’t, you’ll have a lop-sided crane. The small bead will be on the bottom of your crane.

Step 3: pull the thread up to the top and will tie through one side of your plastic ball.

Step 4: if you have glitter, pour a little into the other half of the ball. I couldn’t find glitter so I chose these star instead. (I highly recommend glitter. My stars are too heavy and are sitting at the bottom, but beggars can’t be choosers on Okinawa. I couldn’t find glitter.)

Step 5: put your two plastic ball halves together. Once they are in place, you can tie the two pieces together with the clear thread, and then cut the remainder of the thread off.

Step 6: tape around the crease, and I taped in the other direction too…just to add more interest.

Step 7: add your ribbon, tie some bows, and move on to the next one.

I’m creating 20, so I’m doing them in sets of 5. Once again, I need glasses so my eyes would get tired if I was doing all 20 at once. Also, my hands may get sick of doing knots, so doing 5 at a time works for me. However, if you can and want to do more, I highly encourage it! My 5th ornament took me less than half the time as my first one.

Things to remember, especially if you’re not crafty like me:

1: It really is the thought that counts. No one is expecting a hand-made crane origami gift.

2: Ornaments go on trees, and those trees are likely to have a lot of other ornaments, so yours doesn’t have to be perfect. It’s just going to be another ornament on a tree.

3: This would be a very fun thing to do with friends, so find a friend who is good threading a needle. Find one who can bring a glass of wine or festive holiday drink and have fun picking tape and ribbon at Daiso. You can get as creative as you want with the color combinations. Have fun with it!