How to Make Origami Balls

My ten-year-old loves doing origami. She can make all sorts of things using this Japanese art of paper folding, including cranes, frogs and these origami balls. Since making origami balls (or any other origami shape) are not my strong suit, I asked my daughter to demonstrate how to make them. So I could learn later at my leisure, I took a picture of each step. Okay, I really took the photos to show you all, but I may actually learn to how to make them one day. It could happen! Anyway, to make origami balls you can use colored origami paper or just plain white paper.

How to Make Origami Balls

1. Begin with a square piece of paper.

2. Fold the paper diagonally.

3. Unfold the paper to show the center crease.

4. Now fold the paper again diagonally by having the other two corners meet.

5. Unfold the paper again to show intersecting creases.

6. Fold the paper in half.

7. Create the triangle shown below by pushing the right and left folded edges towards the center of the paper.

8. Fold the bottom left and right corners of the triangle up towards the point of the triangle.

9. Now fold the left and right corners of the part made in step 8 towards the middle.

10. Then flip the paper over and repeat steps 8 and 9 for the other side of the paper.

11. You should now be able to find small little pockets that were made from the folding done in steps 9 and 10. Fold the paper that is above each pocket, into the pocket. Do this for all four pockets.

Here are the little pockets.

This is what it looks like with all paper folded into the pockets.

12. To make this folded paper look like an origami ball, hold the opposite ends and blow into the top so the sides all puff out.

I assure you that it took me a lot longer to write this post than it took my daughter to make origami balls. She made each one in less than five minutes! If you’re looking for more origami ideas, I highly recommend this book.