Irrelevance Glorified

Week 43, October 20th – October 24th

Chinese Duck

Along with the crane and the hopping frog, the duck is probably one of the most recognizable origami to me. Back in the (elementary school) day, I remember checking out Origami books from the library and practicing things (the hardest one was the Chinese Junk, which I never did figure out as a kid). The duck is pretty easy, and so it’s in all of the kid books, which is probably why I get a vague sense of nostalgia when I look at this one.

Waterbird

What….waterbird isn’t good enough for you? You want an actual name? Hey, mister fancy-pants Linnaeus wannabe, who cares what the name is? All we need to know is that it’s a waterbird, so we can go to bodies of water to find them, shoot the, and eat them. If you think otherwise…that’s awfully Un-American….

Mandarin Duck

There are clearly some effed up bird in China.

Turban

I feel like I should be vaguely offended by this. Do you think that this is what Sikh doctors wear in the operating room, to be sterile and all?

Baby Elephant

I’m glad this was just a baby elephant, or else I would have had to get a bigger piece of paper.

As always, these origami designs were found in the Origami Page-A-Day Desk Calendar.

Week 42, October 13th – October 17th

Square Rigger

I don’t know why the square rigger has a non-square sail. Because, I mean, square is in the name. That’s just false advertising.

Skater Punk

I have no idea what they were going for here. This actually reminds me of the Black Riders from the Lord of the Rings, which is substantially more intimidating than a skater punk. When I think of skater punks, I really just think about opportune YouTube videos with skaters hurting themselves.

Jack’s Bird

Yet another possessive Origami. Really, can you own folded paper?

Bat

Yet another origami that requires me to break out the scissors and make a small cut. I feel like such a cheater.

Bird Skull

How incredibly morbid. I mean, it’s not just a bird head or something — we’re talking about a skull here. Also, the previous day’s pattern was this reptilian-skin like thing, so I found myself with a real creepy bird skull here.

As always, these origami designs were found in the Origami Page-A-Day Desk Calendar.

Week 41, October 6th – October 10th

Crane

This is like the great granddaddy of them all. People make thousands of them for peace. I guess if you had war-like intentions and you saw the sort of fierce dedication that it takes to make a million cranes, you would think “I want no part of this!”

Two-Tone Crane

When I first saw this, I thought it said “Two-Ton” Crane, and then I got excited, because I thought it would be an awesome origami play on words (the origami equivalent of a pun?) and show a piece of construction equipment. But alas, it’s just a multi-colored crane.

Plump Crane or Hextuple-Amputee Octopus

So what Origami do I get for my birthday? A fat crane.

Nesting Crane

Quite poignant, a simple origami of a crane in a restful pose.

Parrot

So, just a little bit ago, they had me do a massive two day parrot, with lots of mountain folds and stuff. And now they whip out this simpler one. And while the other one is certainly more impressive…I still think people would figure out this is a parrot like bird.

As always, these origami designs were found in the Origami Page-A-Day Desk Calendar.

Week 40, September 29 – October 3rd

Bag O’ Treats

I didn’t really have any treats on hand, so I just went with Chapstick. But, you know, you could put a few kernels of popcorn in there.

Postman

This right here is Nightmare Fuel. If I had a postman that looked like that, if he ever came to my door, I would probably hide under my bed. I mean, the thing has no arms! And that creepy smile…*shudder*

Simple Swallow

Yeah, this is pretty simple. It doesn’t even fly.

Two Halves of a Cat

This is a pretty blurry picture, but I’m too lazy to retake it. Anyways, the front half on the 2nd, the back half on the 3rd. All together, a pretty good origami, although I always feel it’s a little bit cheat-ey when I have to use scissors to make small cuts.

As always, these origami designs were found in the Origami Page-A-Day Desk Calendar.

Week 39, September 22nd – September 26th

Montroll’s Fish

Who is Montroll, and why does he have a fish. Google Book Search reveals that John Montroll was the author of a few Origami books. Thanks for this, John!

Parrot

This was the first time I had a two-dayer, but only one piece of origami paper. This thing had enough folds to keep people occupied for two days. Quite impressive. Overall, though, I was pretty impressed with the results.

Pteradon

It seems to me that the Pteradactyl has always been more popular than the Pteradon. I don’t know why this is. Don’t worry, Pteradon. Someday the day will be yours.

Post-It Butterfly

I don’t have any Post-It’s around, but you get the idea. Fold it up, and stick it up.

As always, these origami designs were found in the Origami Page-A-Day Desk Calendar.

Week 38, September 15th – September 19th

Butterfly

This is another gimmicky origami. Basically, the deal is that I only made one straight cut to produce this butterfly. I had to make a number of folds of both the mountain and valley varieties. After pre-creasing all the folds, I collapse the whole paper down and make one cut. Very tidy.

Checkered Pattern

I apologize for the amount of tape on this one…it was a real hard one to keep flat.

Rachel’s Rocket

I don’t know why this is Rachel’s Rocket. I try not to ask too many questions.

Fortuneteller

I think we all remember seeing one of these items in elementary school. Or perhaps, seen the South Park episode where the boys see the girls have one and think it’s a device that can see the future. So…what does this one portend?

As always, these origami designs were found in the Origami Page-A-Day Desk Calendar.

Week 37, September 8th – September 9th

Deployable Structure : Simple Wrap

So, this looks pretty stupid. But there’s science here. Basically, this is about structures that fold up flat for transportation, but then can be unfolded once the package has arrived to get the structure. One of the main researchers on this area is Simon Guest, a researcher at the University of Cambridge. This origami example is an example of a deployable structure that could be wrapped around a cylinder, like a hub, as he explains. The example given is of a solar sail.

Box Plane

Once again, a failed plane. Maybe I’m just not throwing it right. But I have yet to see any sort of difference in any of the planes that I’ve made.

Tricorne

According to Wikipedia, a tricorne is a type of hat.
But for me, when I saw it, I couldn’t stop thinking of Zelda.

As always, these origami designs were found in the Origami Page-A-Day Desk Calendar.

Week 36, September 1st – September 5th

Pencil

This is fairly lame, mostly because it’s so two-dimensionally a pencil, and it totally depends on having the paper be two-toned.

Hungry Crow

I take full responsibility for not remembering how this works.

See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil

This is a a traditional theme, often done with monkeys. These were done with the accursed frog base as the starting point, which I hate. But it is good for creating limbs.

As always, these origami designs were found in the Origami Page-A-Day Desk Calendar.

Week 35, June 25th – June 29th

Billfold

To give this some size perspective, I put the dollar armadillo in there. Someday, I will buy a car in cash, and pay it only in origami folded bills. That I will pull out of a giant origami wallet.

Beagle

America’s favorite dog breed, in disembodied head form.

Tissue Holder

They really should have instructed me to make this out of a piece of tissue paper. That would have been so meta.

Seed Packet

In the instructions it tells you when you can put in the seeds, and how to remove them. When it’s folded, it’s pretty leak proof. Did you know that all the seeds in the Global Seed Vault are stored in packets like these? Neither do I. But since I’m not going to check, it could be true, and that’s all that counts.

Summer Love

I presume this will be the last heart of Summer, so it’s Summer Love.

As always, these origami designs were found in the Origami Page-A-Day Desk Calendar.

Week 34, August 19th – August 22

Today’s set of Origami is dedicated to Bruce and my sister Vandana. Happy Birthday guys!

Raccoon

This isn’t a faithful representation of a raccoon. How do I know? It doesn’t terrify me. Actually, the folding is imprecise enough that it kinda looks like a handicapped raccoon. Like, maybe it has cerebral palsy or cystic fibrosis or muscular dystrophy or some other two word medical condition that I don’t fully understand. Legionnaire’s disease?

Fan

Finally! An origami that I can’t screw up!

Hare

Not a rabbit. Not a bunny. A hare.

Volcano

I gave this one my best effort. It did not come with origami baking soda and origami vinegar, though. And, for the record, the instructions did call for me to crumple it a big to give it a volcanoey texture. Seriously. that white stripe is suppose to be, like the lava flow or something. Don’t be fooled by the volcano’s general orangeness. That orange probably isn’t lava.

As always, these origami designs were found in the Origami Page-A-Day Desk Calendar.