Rachel's Creative Space: Origami Trees

Hello, hello, hello everyone. I am here today to show you these cute origami trees I learned how to make. They are so cute and you can use them in your December Daily or other holiday documenting.

Origami trees are easier than you might think. You can use these for scrapbook layouts or for cards as regular trees or even Christmas trees. In my example, you will need 4 squares of paper. You can use cardstock or a light weight paper and it can be one sided paper as well since the white side will not show. You could use more or less squares depending on the size you are wanting.

You will need the paper you would like for your trees, a piece of brown cardstock for a trunk if you wish to have one, a bone folder, and some adhesive. That's is it except for if you want a decorated Christmas tree then you will need some embellishments of your choice.

The squares of paper are 3”, 2 ½” 2”, and 1 1/2”. That gave me a tree that is 2 1/4” tall. If you want larger trees just increase the sizes of paper such as 4”, 3 ½”, 3”, and 2 ½”. Just remember to go down ½” at a time. Your tree could be slightly taller or shorter by how far each square is adhered to the other. You will understand what I mean later.

For each square, fold it in half and then open rotate and fold in half again. So, you will be folding the square in half horizontally and vertically. Then you will fold the square from corner to corner, open it and repeat for the other two corners. As you will see in the first picture below, you will be folding it along each of the lines.

Open the square and you will see all the fold lines. You will have the two side folds go in and then you fold it flat and when you are done it will look like a triangle. Then you will fold the top layer towards the center fold and repeat for the other side. Make sure to use your bone folder for each fold to make it nice a creased which will give you better definition to your project.

Starting with the two largest square pieces, place the largest inside the next smaller size, and then repeat by adding the next smaller square, and so forth. Add the tree trunk if you want it for your particular project as well as an embellishments if you want to make it a Christmas tree.