Friday, February 26th, Saturday, February 27th and Sunday February 28th - more square bases

So now I've been given another two ways of doing the square base. Was it helpful? No. The aim was to give me options and allow me to use the method i found easiest. But by the time id tried the third method i couldnt remember either of the other two. I do know that method three is lame and that method two didnt make sense, so i think ill be using method one.
So that's two months of origami done. I know what you've all asked yourselves at one point or another in your lives. What does two months of origami look like?
Well, you lucky few people who found this blog, you are about to find out that two months of origami doesn't actually look that impressive.
Here it is...:

Thursday, February 25th - Square base method 1

Square base method 1 is a great name for a band. I can't get over how good the name is.
Today is just a base, but i thought id accompany a picture because i think its very similar to the waterbomb base. which is going to be a problem because i will inevitably mix up the bases and fail at origami.
I love the name

Wednesday, February 24th - the sitting fox

The sitting fox only had three steps to it, which was a nice change. It would have been ridiculously easy if i could remember how to make the helmet base. I had to root through the handy note cards and work out how to make it.
Once id worked out the base the rest was nice and simple. Fold, fold and squash.
And it kind of looks like a fox. Except for the fact that foxes aren't green.

Tuesday, February 23rd - the minnow

The minnow seemed simple enough. And it was. Until the last step. The last step was really rather cryptic. It seemed to involve folding back a portion of the tail. However, it didn't specify which portion and what was supposed to happen afterwards. All i had to work with was two dotted lines and a weird looking arrow. It took me a long time.First i tried to follow the instructions. That didnt work. So i tried to look at the picture and work out how to end up there. That didnt work either. So i had to stop and have a think.
Now here I need to clarify something. Im not the type of person who enjoys having to stop and think. I like to either know what Im doing or have someone nearby who knows what im doing. when i need to stop and think, it means im really feeling lost.
So i had a think. And then i went "i wonder what happens if i fold it like this and then pull out like this". hey presto! a minnow!!
And if you google minnow, youll see that my origami does actually kind of look like a minnow...
PS One of my faithful readers sent me a link today that I thought i'd share. Its an origami MP3 player!!! http://www.fastcompany.com/1558138/the-origami-mp3-player

Monday, February 22nd - the painted butterfly

So i am writing this at the same time as watching the best episode ever of "how i met your mother" so i may get distracted and forget to type words.Today's task was the painted butterfly. It would have been easy if the instructions were actually correct. But they weren't. They were rubbish. One minute Im squashing the middle. Next minute the diagram tells me i didn't squash, i did some totally different magical fold. So i ignored the squash instruction and folded my butterfly so it looked like the picture.
The result was something that almost looks right.
Maybe Im not cut out for origami after all hey?
Oh and the paper's now green!!!!

Friday, February 19th, Saturday, February 20th and Sunday February 21st - the Masu box(es)

I dont know what a Masu box is supposed to be, but I had to make one on friday.
I ended up starting it friday and finishing it saturday. It was very fiddly and far too complicated for a friday night. When i finally managed to finish it yesterday, one side didn't quite match the other. At that point I didn't really care anymore.So then today I decided to look at the weekend's activity. It involves making six boxes, all of different sizes so they can fit inside each other. Well i'll see right now I absolutely cannot be bothered with that. To start with the amount of effort involved in find six squares of paper of different sizes is enormous. As you've probably guessed by now, the task of cutting rectangles of paper into squares is a little above my skill level.
I might keep the instructions for the box for a later date so that if ever i feel like making lots of boxes, ill know how to.
By the way, I got asked yesterday whether I actually knew how to make anything yet. The answer is no. I follow instructions and forget them as soon as i've made my origami....

Thursday, February 18th - The inflatable pyramid

So the inflatable pyramid was submitted by Gabrielle Williams. Gabrielle Williams was 14 when she submitted the inflatable pyramid. This small nugget of information led me to ponder how one goes about designing one's own origami? How do you come up with something new?
You see, when Im folding, I never feel like Im anywhere near the end product until the final magical fold (the one that turns paper into art). I find this especially bemusing when we talk about the inflatable ones. See, with the inflatable ones, it doesn't look like the end product until you've blown into it. So how do you know before youve done it???
I am beginning to have enormous respect for those people who design origami. Either theyre really bored and spend their days trying infinite combinations of folds, or they're geniuses who can turn an idea in their heads into something made out of a simple square of paper.
All i do is follow the recipe.

Wednesday, February 17th

Today there was no origami to do. Instead they give you a tip sheet on how to blow up origami without ripping it. Blow air into it, not put explosives in it. doing that without ripping it would be pretty impressive.
So i remembered today is the first day of lent. I don't usually give up anything for lent cos the only thing i would find difficult to give up is nutella and there is no way i would ever give that up. So i considered giving up origami for lent.
Dont worry, ive now decided against it. Not only would i find it very very easy not to do origami every day for forty days, but you guys can't get enough of this blog can you?

Tuesday, February 16th - the waterbomb

I had forgotten how to make a waterbomb base.
Luckily, i discovered that at the back of the calendar there are handy cards to remind you how to make every single base. So i wasn't stuck after all.
After all the annoyance of having to fold hearts every day, the waterbomb was a nice change, and it was relatively easy. There was only one fiddly bit where i was instructed to tuck in the tiny corners. That was fiddly, but only ever on the second one. i could always do the first one.
The final step involved blowing into a small hole to make the whole thing expand.
To tell you the truth i didn't think it would work, but it did. It was kind of a magical moment.....

Monday, February 15th - George's boat

Today was the day I discovered that the origami blog is in fact american. How did I find out? Well, apparently, in the US, today is Presidents' day, and to celebrate I am required to fold a one dollar bill. The one dollar bill apparently has the face of george washington on it, hence the name "george's boat".
Problem 1: I am not in the US. Therefore I do not have a one dollar bill. So i decided to try with a ten pound note instead (it was the only one I had in my wallet).
Problem 2: Money gets handled a lot. So i was working with material that was creased and folded and old and horrible to work with. Makes folding so much harder when it's not a crisp clean sheet of paper.
Problem 3: like paper, money can tear.












No, i didn't actually tear a tenner. But i thought i would a few times. See at one point i forgot to do a fold so for about a quarter of an hour I was trying to do an impossible fold. When i finally folded it correctly it was all sooooo much easier.
So yes, here it is: George's boat.
Or, because it's not actually george, Her Majesty the Queen's boat.

Friday, February 12th, Saturday February 13th and Sunday, February 14th - getting all the valentine mush out of the way in one go.

So what is the point in a heart shaped dish made out of paper? I didnt see one. and it was complicated to make i may have gotten a little over-frustrated and given up.so my dish is actually now just a ball of scrunched up paper. The picture didn't really indicate how the dish was supposed to stay stable and again, i ask, WHAT IS THE POINT OF A HEART SHAPED DISH MADE OUT OF PAPER??????????
And then there was the heart shaped note holder. a little less complicated to make but just as pointless, unless you're a 14 year old girl. This origami was a heart shape with a little fold into which you could slip a note. and instruction number nine was: "insert a valentine's day love note". what an awesome idea. I think ill do that right now.
Yeah no. i am not a fourteen year old girl, all giggly and swoony about boys.
Im going to make brownies

Thursday, February 11th - V for valentine ??!!??!!!!

Oh boy.
Today i had to fold something called V for valentine. it doesn't look like a V and it's utterly pointless. What is anyone going to do with a V?? Give it to their valentine? He wont call you if you do, loser.
No this thing is just a piece of paper folded in a pointless manner. its supposed to stand up by itself but I havent managed that yet. and I couldnt even get if folded straight. To be fair i wasn't really trying that hard. Im not going to waste my time trying any more. Why couldnt we skip this one and start the valentine's theme a day later hey?

Wednesday, February 10th - the heart picture stand

Oh dear. the annoying valentine's themed origami is now starting. I checked and its annoying valentine's theme now till next week.
what's particularly annoying is that hearts are a real pain to fold.
So i had to try and fold a heart shaped picture frame today. Already I was wary because today's task had nine steps, so it looked pretty complicated. and it was. The blintz base i showed you at the beginning of the week is annoying and I can never get it quite right. so already Im starting on a dodgy base. then there's these tiny folds that I still don't understand the use of. And when i got to the end, my heart was wonky and the stand would barely stand up by itself.
I couldn't be bothered to redo it.

Tuesday, February 9th - the jet plane

heres another well loved origami creation that I could never fold as a child. the plane. this isnt the classic flying around the classroom plane, its a jet plane. This plane has funny flap bits. And i tried it, it flies. I think it would have flown better if i'd folded it better, but i was hungry and therefore untidy.
Now some of you may be wondering why there was a lack of proper punctuation and paragraphs in the first part of this entry. Someone decided to inform me that the lack of proper punctuation and occasional grammar mistakes bothered him (yes, him).
For all my other readers who really don't care that once in a while I don't start a sentence with a capital letter, I now like you all better than my criticiser. So there.

Monday, February 8th - the blintz base

And we're back to origami.
So we're learning a new base today. called the blintz base. what's a blintz you ask? apparently its a thin pancake usually filled with some sort of cheese (one definition tells us it should be cottage cheese).
So what has it got to do with the base? nothing.Does anyone remember that game we used to play in primary school where you folded this paper thing and depending on the number you counted a different dare would be revealed? Im not very good at describing but when you see the picture you'll know what i mean. its not as complicated but it looks the same. I could never fold those things when i was little.....

Sunday, February 7th 2010 - the non-origami post

As I am keeping my origami under wraps this weekend, i thought i'd tell you a completely non related story. I'm going to tell you what happened when I tried to upgrade my laptop to windows 7 all by myself.
Now in computer literacy terms, i would class myself as medium. I can work a computer and solve some easy problems. and i try not to cry when it crashes. oh and i now keep a blog, i think that brings points up a bit. although that might be internet usage points. anyway, i do know that more complicated tasks, such as upgrading my operating system, should be undertaken under supervision.
So i was planning on doing it this weekend, under the watchful eye of my highly computer literate boyfriend (in other words, he was going to do it and I was going to pretend to understand what was going on). Unfortunately, said boyfriend was unable to make it this weekend. Leaving me with a completely empty weekend on my hands (I tend to clear my diary when i know he's coming for w visit). So i thought i was clever enough to upgrade by myself (I did check he would be able to help me on the phone if necessary, just in case).
So the first i was told to do was back up my data. easy. and im not going to add a but here, i actually managed to fit everything i wanted to keep on my external hard drive without having to delete any crucial files.....
Next, i had to insert the CD and tell the program I was not an american, i was in fact british.
Then i assumed the next stage was to press go and leave it for a bit. so i pressed go, and it started going. I thought i could just leave it. so i did. I went downstairs to play super mario bros on the wii.
One hour later i came back to discover i had to press next before it would start....... i pressed next, then went back to mario.
half an hour later i came back upstairs. My computer said it was shutting down. 10 minutes later it was still shutting down. i decided to ignore it and go back to mario.
Half an hour later, my housemate shouts down the stairs that it's finished. I reluctantly shut down the wii and come upstairs to inspect the damage.
Things seem to be ok.... its obviously deleted all my programs so i'll have to redownload them. oh wait. its internet explorer. i hate internet explorer. all its "improvements" are poor versions of awesomeness in firefox. so once i got my anti virus back, i went and got firefox back. phew, feeling a little more comfortable.
By the way at this stage im not very comfortable because the differences between vista and windows 7 are subtle, so i click things expecting something to happen and instead something completely different and quite different happens instead.
anyway, i spend two hours retrieving all my programs, sorting through all my emails (all the while ringing the boyfriend every half hour because a message has popped up i dont understand).
Now so far i havent done anything wrong.... I mean, i even remembered antivirus. but on the "how to upgrade" instructions, it tells me to go get the drivers... I asked the boyfriend about this. He said dont bother, if everything's working, leave it alone. I took this advice to mean that if it's not working, i should try and fix it...
So i wanted to check that i could still play DVDs. Put a DVD in and it worked. Good.
Later, housemate and I decide to watch the butterfly effect (film i really enjoy, except for the scene when ashton kutcher claims memories are stored in the outer layer of the cerebral cortex). Problem: DVD doesn't load. In fact, DVD player doesn't appear to exist at all. So i decide to go onto the samsung website and download something to fix it. I google all the terms and somehow decide that the solution to my problem is to download something called BIOS.
Now, judging from my boyfriend's reaction when i recounted this tale to him, this was a mistake, and should have blown my laptop into smitherines (im quite glad it didnt). Now in the short term it did seem to make the dvd player work again, but ever since the dvd player has existed one minute, then disappeared the next. it's baffling.
Boyfriend is going to attempt to repair the damage next weekend.
So now I have windows 7. Im not sure i like it yet (haven't recovered from upgrading), but i reckon in a week it will have grown on me.
Tomorrow we go back to origami.....

February 5th, 6th and 7th - the mystery weekend project

Dear all,
For the first, and hopefully the last, time, i will not be disclosing what the weekend project is just yet. Youll have to wait a while until secrecy is not necessary anymore.
What i can tell you is that today's origame is the first stage in the weekend project and boy is it difficult. there are so many arrows i don't understand and magical pulling stages that don't work.
So you may be thinking that I am not disclosing the origami project because I just can't do it and i refuse to admit defeat. Well believe what you will. For once, im actually going to manage to keep a secret.
Possibly.

Thursday, Februaru 4th - the plant starter

Ahh plants. How i hate them. They're alright outside where they dont need looking after, or in a vase where they'll die anyway. but plants that need to be grown are not for me.
So i had to make the most pointless origami today (as opposed to the penguin boat or the star thing): a little box to grow a plant in before putting it in a pot. And i do have to admit, it is a very neat little box. pretty easy to make too. In fact the more i think about it the more i like it. I just dont like that its for plants. for me the fact that its designed for plants turns it into a death box. plants will go there to die.
but i like the way its made. and its quite sturdy. After writing that i went to try pull it apart and nope, it didnt fall apart, so it passed the test.
I really am in two minds about this.
Now i get to go back to reading a 44 page review. fun times.

Wednesday, February 3rd - the starter's star

Oh my, i was right about things suddenly getting way more complicated. I almost gave up today.
I came across a very cryptic instruction: hold down under flaps and shift upper flaps. Look ahead at step 5. Now since it was only yesterday that i complained that they overdid the instructions, its a little upsetting that today i have to complain about their complete lack of instructions. The next picture was completely unhelpful. Even the supposedly helpful folding card provided with the calendar didnt help.
Turns out i kind of had to twizzle the flaps at a right angle. I would have understood that instruction way better. origami is difficult.

Tuesday, February 2nd - the waterbomb base

uh oh. The bases are getting more complicated. That can only mean that the whole origami thing is about to get even more complicated. This base involves folding and unfolding a few times to create creases in the right places and in the right direction. Then you push the whole thing inwards and squash it.
What i found weird was that the calendar went a little over the top with instructions at one point. I'm used to the calendar being a little obscure but this time it put one step into two. So when you push the paper together along the creases (should only be one instruction), it splits the instructions into two. The first instruction is start to collapse (lol if you don't pay attention to the fact that you're doing origami that instruction could have some fun consequences). The second instruction is collapse to centre. But surely when you start to collapse you will inevitable finish off by being collapsed in the centre.
It's infuriating because it's so vague on other days........

Monday, February 1st

Happy February everybody (or three people following my blog plus the at least one person not following but who'd better be reading since they're the reason im doing this).
So today was the pelican. Very poorly designed pelican. A nice and easy bit of origami compared to the weekend's mission.
Now why would i complement it saying its nice and easy just after having said its porrly designed? My pelican doesn't balance. I had to hold it upright to take a picture. I think a pelican should be able to stay upright. even a paper one. this one doesnt. the only part of it that could possibly keep it balanced would be the wings, but theyre too flimsy.
Also, i seem to have trouble with beaks. all the birds i have folded so far seem to have unnaturally long beaks. no offence to the kiwi and the spoonbill. although the spoonbills beak really is unnatural.