Origami 3D Valentine Swan

I made this 3D Origami Valentine Swan as a gift for my husband on this year Valentine's Day  :)

This is same as http://or1gam1.blogspot.com/2013/03/3d-origami-swan.html.

Sonobe Cube

Instructions here: http://www.origami-instructions.com/origami-modular-sonobe-cube.html
                                                               OR
                          http://britton.disted.camosun.bc.ca/origami/sonobe.html#cube

No of units: 6 , I took 3 colors.

Paper : Color Printer paper used. 5 " x 5 " square sheets

Difficulty: Very Simple and easy assembly

Time : can finish in 1 hour

No glue required.

Magic Rose Cube

This rose can be converted to a box cube. Hence the name magic rose cube.

Designed by Valerie Vann

Tutorial available here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8EyLFWXV_0   by JoNakashima

Number of units required:   6 ( 3 red/white and 3 green for leaves )

Difficulty: Very easy and fun to do

Time:  2 hours

Paper type and size:  Printer paper used of size 5" x 5" square sheet.

No glue required, easy to assemble.
I decorated my plastic plant tree I have at home with magic rose cube.

Morning Dew Kusudama

After doing 9 intersecting planes it had started to become monotonous. I began with 10 intersecting planes  but after making about 10 units, my energy drained.  I thought of trying something else for a change. That's when I came across this beautiful Kusudama flower. Very easy to do. It requires glue since there is no pocket and flap in this model. I made a Kusudama flower ball,12 flowers arranged in dodecahedron fashion and hung in my apartment. Take a look at the video below which has more photos of Kusudama.

From wiki : The word itself is a combination of two Japanese words kusuri, Medicine, and tama, Ball. They are now typically used as decorations, or as gifts.. The kusudama is important in origami particularly as a precursor to the modular origami genre. It is often confused with modular origami, but is not such because the units are strung or pasted together, instead of folded together as most modular construction are made.

Designed by : Makoto yamaguchi (Kusudama Ball Origami)

Here's the link:
Reference:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HRxoeyHeLjo
No of units: 60 units to make Kusudama ball. 5 units to make a single flower
Paper size used : 5" x 5"  
Difficulty: easy model.
Paper used: normal color printer paper
Time: 5 to 6 hours

I took more time to complete this, like 4-5 days. I did not do continuously, spent around 1-2 hour per day.
Some sites that inspired me to try Kusudama flower:

http://gurmeet.net/origami/traditional-kusudama/
http://origamimaniacs.blogspot.com/2013/05/beautiful-origami-flowers.html

Music : Richard Stoltzman's Maid with the Flaxen Hair

QRSTUVWXYZ - 10 intersecting planes - Stars

Started on 21 May finished on 24th May 2013

After completing 9 intersecting planes I didn't start off with this one. It had become rather monotonous doing just the intersecting planes. I did a couple of curler models before starting this.

There is no color schematic diagram for this in the book. It is just mentioned that it should be assembled in truncated icosahedron pattern. I learnt that truncated icosahedron is just like a soccer ball, has hexagons and pentagons. Pentagons are surrounded by hexagons on all its sides. Hexagons are surrounded  by pentagons and hexagons alternatively.

Paper used: Color printer paper. Personally I find printer papers very comfortable to do Origami (I have tried Origami papers available in stores but I felt this is better). To make an individual unit there are two folds in the flap. For the initial units I had trouble.

Number of units: 10 x 9 = 90 , 10 planes 9 units each.

90 units

For any intersecting plane after making units and before assembling I arranged them in a plane like this. For 10 intersecting plane each plane is a Nonagan, polygon with 9 faces.

10 Nonaganal planes

Size of Paper : 4 " x 4 "

Difficulty : Moderate

Time taken : 8 hours roughly

Base Angle: 360 / 9 = 40 degrees

Reference:  Ornamental Origami: Exploring 3D Geometric Designs and link in David Petty (http://www.davidpetty.me.uk/ / Diagrams (on left side) / Clickable list of all models on this site / search for the diagram)

Also I referred to this photo to assemble initially (http://gurmeet.net/origami/qrstuvwxyz-by-meenakshi-mukerji/). Once I got all color units it was straight forward, I just followed the rule of truncated icosahedron and that same color papers should lie in same plane.

Half way - semi circle

Above pic: Half way assembly. One of the planes Dark Yellow is complete. There are 4 units remaining in each of the remaining 9 colors

Lastly,

Inspiration to try all the Intersecting planes:

1. http://gurmeet.net/origami/ -- This site has instructions to many Origami models, it led me to David Petty's Origami Emporium site.  
2. Ornamental Origami: Exploring 3D Geometric Designs and
3. http://www.davidpetty.me.uk

All the above book and links helped me a great deal!! 

Here I stop intersecting planes. May be I will try Rectangular or other pattern sometime later.

RSTUVWXYZ -9 intersecting planes - Stars

Completed on 19th April 2013.

Baby pink is the 9th plane.

Reference:  Ornamental Origami: Exploring 3D Geometric Designs
Time taken:  6-7 hours (3 days , 2 hours per day)
Paper used: Color printer papers
Paper size : 4 inch x 4 inch
No of units: 9 x 8 = 72 (8 units per plane)
Base Angle : 360 / 8 = 45 degrees
Difficulty:  Moderate, after trying 8 intersecting planes this was easy.  Refer to color schematic diagram in the book. Also available here :
 http://www.origamee.net/
 Under Diagrams, next to intersecting planes, there's a link [Assembly guide]. Click it.
for units:
http://www.nickrobinson.info/origami/petty/origamiemporium/images/mm_rstuvwxyzstars.gif


Enjoyed folding this model.

STUVWXYZ - 8 intersecting planes - Stars

Update : There seems to be some problem with the David Petty assembly guide link. For the diagrams, go to   http://www.davidpetty.me.uk/ / Diagrams (on left side) / Clickable list of all models on this site / search for the diagrams.

8 intersecting planes - stars. Orange is the 8th plane.

I started on 15th April and finished on 17 April.

It took me 3 days to complete this model taking 1-2 hours per day. Totally I would have spent around 6 hours to cut the color printer papers to 4" x 4" size, make the units and assemble. Making individual unit is simple. Assembly gets confusing. I didn't have trouble making first half circle. While making second half there are quadrilaterals and pentagons. I simply assumed there are pentagons but when I tried to assemble that way, it went wrong. I removed / assembled at least 3-4 times until I analysed color chart/diagrammatic representation given in the book Ornamental Origami: Exploring 3D Geometric Designs. If not for the color schematic diagram it would have been rather difficult. Thanks to the author Meenakshi Mukerji.

The color schematic diagram is also given in her personal website http://www.origamee.net/
Under Diagrams, Next to Intersecting planes, there's a link [Assembly guide]. Click it.

Assembly guide also available here:
http://www.nickrobinson.info/origami/petty/origamiemporium/images/mm_stuvwxyz.gif

Difficulty: I would say moderate. Individual unit is easy to make. Assembly technique is also similar to ones I did earlier. Only thing is the color schematic diagram. Follow it and it is easy.

No. of units: 8 x 7 = 56 units

Base angle = 360 / 7 = 51.5 degrees.

No glue used for any of the intersecting planes models. No paper clip used while assembling.

TUVWXYZ - 7 intersecting planes - Stars

7 intersecting planes - stars.
I love star planes than rectangular planes. So I stopped doing rectangular ones given in the book. (Anyway number of units started getting too many, it takes time to fold and assemble).

Reference : Ornamental Origami: Exploring 3D Geometric Designs
No of units:  7 x 6 = 42 . 7 planes 6 units each.
Difficulty:  Easy
Paper used: Color printer papers
Paper size: 4 inch x 4 inch
Time : 4-5 hours (I didn't complete these models at one stretch. I took 2-3 days spending 2 hours per day)

Base angle = 360 / 6 = 60 degrees.

Assembly Technique: Start by connecting 6 units. In the photo the hexagon which I started is towards left formed by red, light purple, light blue, green, orange and yellow. Baby pink is the 7th plane.

The assembly guide is also available here:
http://www.davidpetty.me.uk/origamiemporium/images/mm_tuvwxyz.gif