This is the start of a new year for us at senbazuru.eu; so Happy New Year to all our followers! To mark this event, we have chosen to start 2013 with this snake origami, since, according to Chinese horoscope, 2013 is the year of the snake. This particular origami was designed by Rita Foelker and is relatively easy to fold. You’ll need a 15 cm wide (approx. 6”) sheet of duo color paper to get a good result.

There you have it! A new box, by Tomoko Fuse of course! :) This is a beautiful hexagonal box with a pattern that looks like a flower on the lid. This is a modular origami made ​​with 4 squares of identical size, here I took 15 cm (6”) wide squares.

Some of you may not like modular origami because it is often pretty long to fold, but this one is a good example of how you can achieve a very nice result with little effort (only 2 modules for the bottom of the box, on 2 others for the lid). I found the result to be even nicer when folded from a mix of plain colour and leaf patterned sheets.

It may be used to hide a gift, or be the gift itself! But beware, you have to be meticulous to achieve this origami. Better to have - even a small - modular origami experience before taking the plunge. It is a good idea, for instance, to know the simpler square boxes by Tomoko Fuse as a basis.

This traditional origami is composed of two square sheets of the same size (15 cm - 6” - wide) folded in the same fashion, then assembled back to back (no glue needed). You can hang the resulting star on your Christmas tree or use it to decorate your house. This origami is done with the base of the mill, which requires a lot of pre-folds, but is not particularly difficult.

This origami by Maarten van Gelder will make a nice little place card for your Christmas table if you fold from a two-tone 15 cm (approx. 6”) wide square sheet.
But it can also be used to fold a napkin: in this second case, you will preferably use square napkins of about 40 cm (approx. 16”) - either made from starched cloth or relatively rigid paper. If you don’t use this kind of material, you may have difficulties holding them upright!

This is a shooting star origami created by Kunihiko Kasahara. It is folded from a 10.5 x 29.7 cm (approx. 4 x 11,5”) rectangle, that is to say an “A4” sheet cut in half lengthwise. You can totally opt for another format: for instance, a more elongated rectangle will fold into a longer shooting star. Beware though, the paper should not be too thick. For an optimal look rely on two-tone metallic gift wrap, which will allow your star to shine a thousand lights! ^_^