Origami

 These are colorful paper crafts that I received from friends.This art of folding the paper called Origami originated from Japan.

One of the first few gifts I got. It’s nice and colorful.

Unfortunately, I don’t know the name of the person who gave me this.

**ignore the band aid – I used it to stick a small picture on the origami)

Winnie-the-Pooh. I was able to make this by following the demonstration of a friend. She has a copy of instructions. We used three sheets of paper for the head, body and vest. The flowery envelop was given to me as a present.

Flowers. The same friend taught me how to make this flowers which can look like roses.

Triangular origami. The red ones are Santa Claus. Another friend, the one who likes playing the playing the piano and singing with me gave these Santa Claus Origami.

This is the most popular origami. Crane in Japanese is written as 鶴 (tsuru).  I tried to make paper cranes several times but I couldn’t do it it properly. I was only able to do it successfully on my own once.

Actually, there is what we call Thousand Origami Cranes (千羽鶴 Senbazuru?).  This is a group of one thousand origami paper cranes (折鶴 orizuru) held together by strings.

The crane in Japan is one of the mystical or holy creatures that is said to have live for a thousand years: That is why 1000 cranes are made, one for each year.

According to an ancient Japanese legend , anyone who folds a thousand origami cranes will be granted a wish by the Gods. There are different stories. Some say that the person will be granted eternal good luck, instead of just one wish, such as long life or recovery from illness or injury. For this reason, crane became popular gifts for special friends and family.

Reference: Wikipedia, One Thousand Origami Crane