‘I made another origami crane!’ I announced, presenting the paper bird to Shana a little in the manner of a cat bringing its owner yet another dead shrew. Shana took the crane, clearly admiring the well-creased folds, the paper’s crisp texture, and the mirror-image phone numbers that had just appeared all over her fingers as she inspected my handiwork. Yes, one of us had forgotten that my origami projects at the moment are all done on discarded telephone directories and that, like the pages of the popular British tabloid press, the print sometimes rubs off.

‘Only another 998 to go,’ I offered. Traditionally, if you make a thousand origami cranes you get to make a special wish. The ancient Chinese or Japanese (or maybe both) believed cranes were a symbol of luck and your wish would thus be granted.

I wondered if it would still work if I only made twenty cranes, then took a picture and photoshopped it to make it look like a thousand. Hollywood film directors do this kind of thing all the time, paying half a dozen extras and then using CGI effects to make them look like the Mongol horde–never a good idea in a lavish production of Pride and Prejudice, but hey! it’s Hollywood so at the end of the day it’s all about getting bums on seats.

Anyhow, just because the ancient Japanese/Chinese/Burmese/etc-ese didn’t have image manipulation software, doesn’t mean we should have to do without modern technology. But maybe the old Oriental gods don’t see it that way. Another nine hundred dratted birds to fold then. Ho hum.

Am I allowed to take on temporary staff? No, thought not. Forget I mentioned it.

Here’s a good tip for origami enthusiasts to save money in these times of economic austerity. Don’t rush out and buy ‘proper’ origami paper. Rip up the phone directory instead. That’s what I did, and it’s loads better than the standard 80gsm A4 printer paper I’ve been using. OK, I might not do origami very often (and when I do I tend to specialise in the more unusual creations, such as deformed Scottie dogs and seven-legged spiders) but it’s worth knowing these things even so.

Yellow Pages works equally well but is just a tad smaller. If you do use the YP for origami, you will be doing what I have dubbed ‘Yellogami’, i.e., yellow + origami.

Above is my attempt at a crane made from one sheet out of the Yellow Pages. View the pic full size and you’ll notice the entry for flying schools on the underside of one wing. It seemed appropriate at the time.

In the background of this one you’ll notice a copy of Grant Wood’s American Gothic. No special reason for the juxtaposition of bird and poster. But if you just happen to be looking for ‘origami crane and slightly out-of-focus American Gothic’ on one of those image search engines at some future date, ours may be the only one there. If you’ve just clicked through from that result, I bet you’re happy now, aren’t you?

Hello?

Hey, where’d they go?

After my recent bout of origami we are now reduced to writing even our most important communications on the backs of discarded envelopes. At last we have found a use for all those Readers’ Digest competition letters; and what we don’t write on, I can transform–via the magic of origami–into cranes with bendy legs and deformed wings. Isn’t life brill!

Above is my attempt at an origami dodecahedron. This is one of the ‘modular origami’ projects in Complete Origami by Eric Kenneway. Thanks to Eric, we have had hours of annoyance and frustration fun and jollity making origami boxes, not to mention dozens of unseaworthy tugboats, mutant penguins and little fancy purses in which Japanese women are supposed to keep their sewing accessories. Round here alas both Japanese women and sewing accessories are rather thin on the ground; maybe those rare Japanese seamstresses are avoiding us, although I can’t even begin to imagine why!

If you are a real origami anorak (or alternatively, if time is weighing a little heavy on you right now and you are at a loss for anything better to do) one click on the dodecahedron pic will enlarge it so much you’ll even be able to see the watermark on the paper. You might even be able to see out of our living room window if you look at the right part of the image. You might even notice how the grey clouds of doom appear to be rolling in and massing in the sky…

Shana found this excellent origami website recently and naturally I couldn’t wait to try a few of their folds. If we run out of writing paper, now we know who to blame.

Above is my attempt at an origami crow, and what a fine fellow he is! Click on him to see him up close and even more crow-like. If you have a really powerful computer he might even launch himself off the monitor and fly round your living room, such is the power of origami. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.