Kusudama Origami Christmas Onaments

As those of you who are familiar with some of my prior instructables can probably tell, I have been relatively addicted to adapting the design of kusudama flowers into different designs for different purposes. As such, tried to create a small variety of designs for decoration of a Christmas tree. I packaged the design into small gift kits for family and gave them out.

I will not get too detailed as I have outlined the process to create the flower in other instructables. However, I've included the pictures for the process and I will give a quick recap.

First, cut out squares of origami paper to the size you want to use, and fold it in half diagonally.

Turn the open edge away from you and fold up each corner to the top.

Fold the top flaps outwards to each side. The unfold. This was done only to create a crease line.

Take the flap with the crease line and open it then push is down to fold it on the crease line. Do this on both sides.

Not fold down the tips of the flaps you just made so that the fold line is in line with the outer edge of the top point.

Fold the side flaps in half to hide the tips you just folded down. Add glue to the edge and fold it together. Use clothes pins to hold it together for about 15 minutes. This makes one petal.

I realized that If I cut each petal into strips I could get multiple flowers of different sizes from one group of petals.

I used a paperclip to open and round the petal, then arranged them into star or flower shapes. Once I liked the arrangement, took out one petal piece at a time and added a small amount of glue to each side. I slipped it back into place. I continued this until it was all glued together. I then let it sit for about 20 minutes while I worked on other flowers.

The cool things about sectioning the petals for multiple flowers of different sizes, is that you can arrange them in countless ways for different effect. For example, in the pictures above, I layered the different sized flowers on top of each other, first with the flower facing the table, and second with the flower facing up. You can glue different sizes together side by side as well, or connect them in other ways.

I added glue to each section and stuck them together. You don't have to use a lot of glue.

I used a small thumbtack to push a hole through the Kusudama ornament. NOTE: before pushing it through I held the petal up against a wine cork so that I did not warp the petal in the process.

I used a small metal loop from a jewelry packet available at any craft store, and thread it through the hold. I used jeweler pliers to close the loop.

I then used some leftover thread to ready the ornament for hanging. I looped it through the hoop and tied it off. I tried to pick colors that complemented the ornament well.

Here are the first rounds of ornaments. Although there are many more possible designs. Let me know if you find a favorite design! Thanks for reading.

This is a generally kid friendly project. If you make a pile of petals, and give them to your kids, you can get some very creative designs.

To extend the life of the ornaments you can coat it a few times with clear nail polish or spray it with a protective spray (even spray eurothane).