Island Hopping – Fun With Origami!

Aloha, all!

Once again it is the last Wednesday of the month and time for Island Hopping – a small hop between the islands of Maui and Hawai’i (The Big Island) out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

I am from the Big Island and Cheryl Hamilton, a sister Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator, is from Maui. Both of us love to stamp together. While we’re not able to island hop in person, we’ve really enjoyed our online hopping. Last month we had such a good time CASE-ing each other’s projects that we decided to do it again.

Origami – An Island Tradition!

There is a very large and artistic Japanese community in the State of Hawai’i. Read any history of Hawai’i and you’ll find hundreds of stories about how wonderfully Japanese culture has influenced Hawaiian culture. If you use an online search engine and enter the words “Hawai’i” and “Origami,” you’ll be surprised at the number of great results. So I was intrigued when I saw a post about Cheryl’s class that used an origami fold to decorate the front of a card. I should do that, too!

A Simple Square Fold Makes a Lovely Card

Making this square origami fold is really simple, but it makes such a lovely element on a card. It makes a really special effect with double-sided paper that has two complementary designs. One such design is the sheet from the Most Wonderful Time Product Medley that has a candy cane stripe on one side and little candy canes on the other. I especially like that the little candy canes are pictures on an Old Olive background. That complements the Real Red of the other side so very well.

Quick Instructions

Cut a 4″ piece of 2-sided paper. Fold each of the four corners into the middle of the paper. Then fold each of the points of those folded corners back on each other. One way to do it is the way Cheryl did it for her cards. Fold the points back so that they form in effect what is an 8-sided star. A benefit of this fold is that there’s lots of room in the middle of the square to add a sentiment. I used a sentiment from the same Product Medley and cut it and an Old Olive mat using the Layering Circles Dies.

Another Version

There’s another way to make this fold that I thought I’d try. For this fold, instead of bringing the points of the square outside of the piece, I let them stop at the edge of the folded square. This is fun if you’d like to add some element other than a sentiment in the middle (though a small sentiment would work all right).

I’ve been dying to use some of the Candy Cane stickers that are in the Product Medley package, and this seemed like a great place for them. Even though they’re stickers, I decided to mount them with Stampin’ Dimensionals to accent the depth of the folds in the square. I just love how the candy canes complement each other so well!

A Pretty Printed Banner

With no sentiment in the center of this square, I wanted to add one to the bottom of the card. Out came yet another fun element of the Product Medley – label dies! I really hadn’t paid attention to them before this. But when I was trying to decide which punch to use to make a label, there was the Product Medley spread all over my work table (yes, it’s a mess). And there was a label already cut and printed. All I had to do was to stamp a sentiment on it. Out came another one from, you guessed it, the Product Medley.

The Bottom Line

Once again there are two “bottom lines” for this blog post. The first is that there is SO much to use in The Most Wonderful Time Product Medley! It’s well worth every penny with all the things that I’ve used here plus embellishments and trim and cards and die-cuts printed with Real Red and Old Olive and gold elements. There’s even a set of dies to go with the stamp set. Wonderful!

The second is, of course, that you must go visit Cheryl Hamilton’s Blog. I wonder what she CASEd of mine? I’ll find out at just about the same time as you do. What fun!

Have a great last few days of October crafting away!