the bottomsup blog | parenting, living, and crafting in Singapore

Layla’s school is organising a Chinese New Year decorating competition, and you guessed it: The mom brigade has been mobilised again! My friends are aghast when they hear about stuff like this, but I actually think it’s kinda fun. I’ve been talking to a new friend—the mom assigned to lead this latest “project”—and it turns out we’re kindred spirits when it comes to aesthetics. So we’ve ruled out gold, red packets, and anything else that would never make it onto Apartment Therapy. Our version of Chinese New Year? Handmade and modern, and on our team are working moms as well as stay-home moms who’re following tutorials and making tissue paper pompoms, cranes, and paper cuttings for the first time. How cool is that?

The idea for making paper cherry blossoms came from my friend, who said she’d followed this Martha Stewart tutorial and had them turn out fine. I couldn’t figure out if she was a genius or if I was just plain stupid, but I checked out the link, tried it out, and all I got was junk.

Eventually I found a much more detailed (but way easier to understand) animated tutorial here. It took me about 10 tries and now I can make these pretties by heart.

I’m using Post-Its instead of origami paper and it’s working out great. If you want to try this out with a Post-It too, fold in the sticky sides together when you begin.

The tutorial that I’ve used isn’t entirely idiot proof, so here are some pictures and instructions that will hopefully be of help if you get stuck:

Fold your paper in half, and then make folds so that you get the lines above. What you need is really the spot marked “B,” so that you can bring the edge marked “A” to it.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll need to make another fold, from A to B.

Next, you should fold the edge marked “A” inwards, such that the two lines meet.

And this is what you should see.

Fold in the shaded portion (downwards, to the left).

If you’ve got this shape, great! You’re almost there! Cut along the dotted line.

And cut off the tip, as indicated by the dotted line. You don’t have to be precise in making these cuts; your blossoms will vary in width but they’ll still be good looking!

If you’ve got this, open up your blossom.

If you’re feeling lazy, you could end it here. But if not…

This was the tricky bit for me. You’re supposed to fold in your flower again, such that you have a petal in front, and a petal behind. Because there are five petals in all, one side will be thicker than the other.

Here’s a side view.

Finally, you’ll have to make two little folds at the base. Look at steps 11 and 12 in this diagram. Open up your blossom while maintaining the folds, and you’re done!

I hope I haven’t added to the confusion here! Let me know if you’re trying this and how it works out. Once you figure this out, it can get addictive!

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