from one of my favorite books, Advanced Origami by Michael LaFosse (Tuttle, 2005). There are thousands of folding videos on YouTube.com and folding diagrams on websites like Scribd.com. Most importantly, there are two websites devoted to making botanical sculptures from paper, www.Benagami.com and www.OrigamiBonsai.org.
There are also numerous opportunities to sell your work online. Etsy, Artfire, and DaWanda are websites which offer inexpensive e-commerce for handmade goods. You’ll need to figure out shipping costs, but other than that, these sites make selling your work really easy.
www.Benagami.com features my latest work and information about my studio.
www.OrigamiBonsai.org is a creative forum for people interested in making plants using origami and makigami techniques.
An origami hummingbird feeds at an origami flower.
How to Pack a Sculpture for Shipping
Whether you’re selling your work or giving it away, you need to know how to ship your sculptures successfully. While origami ikebana arrangements look delicate, they’re actually quite resilient when shipped because they have very little mass. This means the boxes they’re shipped in can take a fair amount of abuse without damaging the sculpture inside. When packing your sculpture, be very careful when executing steps 1 and 6, described below. For full disclosure, I have to admit that I broke my sculpture’s stamens in step 1. I would normally not put a sculpture inside a box as shown in step 1 without securing the flaps on one side first. Securing the flaps on one side ensures that the box won’t collapse unexpectedly.
You should also consider double-boxing every sculpture you ship. In other words, pack the box as described below inside another, larger box. You should never put any additional loose items inside the inner box which contains the sculpture. Even something as small and light as an origami hummingbird can damage a sculpture during shipping when packed inside the inner box.
1 Find a box big enough to fit your sculpture with lots of room to spare. Cut a piece of cardboard that’s a little bit smaller than one side of your box. Set your sculpture aside and open the flaps on both sides of the box.
2 Poke two holes through the piece of cardboard and the side of your box, at the front right corner and at the back left corner.
3 Mark the piece of cardboard and the box so you’ll have a reference to align the holes you made in step 2.
4 Poke two more holes on the piece of cardboard, very close to the base of your arrangement. If you’re shipping a very large sculpture you may want to poke four holes.
5 Use a twist tie to secure the sculpture to the piece of cardboard.
6 Secure the flaps on one side of the box by overlapping them. Align the piece of cardboard to the box using the mark you made. Thread a twist tie through the closest holes you made in the piece of cardboard and then through the corresponding holes you made in the side of the box, and then twist them to secure the piece of cardboard to the box. Close and secure the flaps on this side of the box with tape, and then open the flaps on the opposite side.
8 Write instructions for the recipient on the outside of the box as shown. They should open one side of the box and then cut the twist ties to release the piece of cardboard from the box. Make sure the twist ties are tight by twisting them a couple more times, and then secure their ends with small pieces of tape.
7 Repeat step 6 on this side of the piece of cardboard, and then close and secure these flaps with tape.
CUTTING PAPER FOR ORIGAMI IKEBANA
Leaves and flowers grow in every size imaginable. I was recently at a greenhouse which had some large palm trees. These trees had leaves that were over eight feet long. I have also seen trees, like some varieties of mesquite, that have leaflets which are almost microscopic. We must have a method for cutting squares in many sizes in order to mimic a variety of plant life.
When I first began making origami plant sculptures I used commercially produced squares of origami paper. Making lots of differently sized leaves was both expensive and wasteful. One day I ran out of origami paper. With an abundant supply of photocopy paper nearby, I wondered if I might be able to cut my own squares. What follows is a method that will make squares of just about any size.
How to Make Squares
This is a simple technique to make squares from inexpensive office paper. I prefer to use 20 lb. (75 gm/cm2) paper with low or no rag (cotton) content. My latest batch is made entirely of recycled fibers and works well.
1 This first fold determines the size of your squares. The distance “X” represents the distance between the bottom and top edges of paper when the sheet is folded horizontally. If X=0 then you’re folding the paper in half and you’ll get the largest size squares. As X increases, your squares will decrease in size.
2 Fold the corners down and toward the center. Careful alignment will ensure you end up with good squares.
3 Your paper should look like this. Flip it left to right.
4 Fold the top corners down and toward the center just as you did in step 2, and then flip your model left to right.
5 Cut off and retain the two ends, and put the middle section into your paper recycling bin.
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