Origami Butterfly
Craft a gorgeous origami butterfly this Spring! When you’re done, you can try making an origami crab too! This post contains affiliate links.
Is it wishful thinking or can you feel Spring coming? This sweet origami butterfly is definitely looking forward to blooming gardens in the near future, but it’s willing to stick around no matter what the season.
You can see and appreciate the subtly 3-dimenstional origami folds.
There’s no limit to how you can decorate these butterflies. If you have a party coming up, you can add names to the butterflies’ wings to make a set of coordinating place cards and table decor.
You can also hang a few – or a lot! – from fishing line on an embroidery hoop to create a mobile for your baby or playroom. They’ll look like they’re fluttering mid-air! They’re such fun to make that you’ll be finding excuses to put them just about anywhere!
Best of all – they may look impressive but they’re really not that complicated to make. Young children will probably need your guidance for their first few butterflies, but more experienced crafters will find this project simply relaxing.
What you need
- Origami or copy paper (any lightweight paper will work), cut into a square
- Glue
- Scissors
- Optional: Bone folder to help you get better creases. (You can also use a wooden ruler or other hard edge to help sharpen folds)
How to Make an Origami Butterfly
1. Fold the paper in half diagonally by folding the top left corner to the bottom edge. If your paper is a perfect square, all the edges will line up to form a triangle. If they don’t, now is the time to trim off the extra. Unfold the paper so you are now looking at a square with a diagonal crease.
2. Fold diagonally the other way by folding the top right corner down to the bottom left. Unfold so that you now have two diagonal creases.
3. Flip the paper over so that the creases are popping up at you.
4. Fold the paper in half horizontally by folding the top edge down to the bottom, crease, and unfold. Create a vertical crease by folding the paper from left to right. Unfold.
5. Here’s the part that will make a lot more sense in the picture than in words: Poke down the side creases you just made so they bend away from you, and let the diagonal creases pop up toward you.
You will now be able to flatten the paper into a thick triangle as shown in the picture.
6. Fold it in half along the center crease so all the triangle flaps are together.
7. Find the corner where you have 4 separate layers. Trim that corner to make it rounded.
8. Unfold that last fold you made, so that you again see a crease down the middle with two layers of triangles on each side.
9. Take the rounded corner on your left side – there should be two layers of paper in your fingers. Fold to bring the edge up against the center crease.
Repeat on the right side.
10. Flip the project over.
11. Take the still-pointy tip of the triangle and fold it up so it sticks out a little past the opposite edge. Your rounded edges may start popping up – do not crease them down just yet. You can do that later if you want, or you can leave them curved.
12. Flip the project over to the other side again. Take that tip of the triangle that you left sticking out and fold it over to the front. You can now use a drop of glue to secure it in place.
Be honest – did you go “whoa” that last time you flipped the project over and realized what you’d done? You almost couldn’t see it coming and thought there were another five steps left, right? Origami is so awesome like that. Now it’s time to go ahead and decorate your origami butterfly with markers, stamps, glitter, or whatever your mood leads you to!
