Origami Crane Step 1: Start with a 6 inch (15cm) square origami paper
Now it will be very easy to simply collapse the piece of paper along the fold lines.
It will collapse right into a square folded piece of paper. This is your square base!
Origami Bird Base Step 2: Fold the corners inwards as shown in the next two photos. Crease well and unfold. The
creases are very important so go over them once, twice, three times.
Origami Bird Base Step 3: Fold down the tip. Once again, crease well and unfold.
Origami Bird Base Step 4: The 3 creases we've made in the previous steps will help us make the petal fold. If you've
creased well, then the paper will "co-operate" and you can complete the fold rather easily. If you didn't crease well, it
will be harder to get the paper to fall in place.
Lift the bottom corner upwards, and fold along the crease lines as shown and flatten to form a triangle..
Origami Bird Base Step 5: Your bird base is now half-done. Flip the piece over.
Origami Bird Base Step 6: We'll repeat Steps 3 and 4 on this side. Fold in the 3 corners on this side to make crease
marks. Once again, make sure to crease well then unfold.
Origami Bird Base Step 7: Now lift the bottom corner and do another petal fold.
Now your bird base is complete!
Origami Crane Step 2: Fold the both sides to the middle, as shown.
Origami Crane Step 3: Flip paper over.
Origami Crane Step 4: Now fold both sides to the middle.
Origami Crane Step 5: We're now going to make inside reverse folds. This is acommonly used technique in origami.
To do so, we need to first make a diagonal crease. We'll start with the right side.
If you've never done an inside reverse fold, check out our page that has more detailed photos first.
Make sure the paper is well-creased on both sides.
Origami Crane Step 6: The crease allow us to actually make the inside reverse fold. Lift up the bottom tip and tuck it in
between the 2 sides of paper. Press paper flat. This is the inside reverse fold.
Origami Crane Step 7: Now repeat Steps 5 and 6 for the right side to form the "neck" of the crane. Crease the paper
and make the inside reverse fold.
Origami Crane Step 8: Make one more inside reverse fold to form the head of the crane.
Origami Crane Step 9: Almost there. Fold down the wings.
Pull the wings gently apart to open up and flatten the middle "hump" of theorigami crane.
And your origami crane is complete! We've completed the first one. Now readers, how about you send in the next
nine-hundred and ninety-nine origami cranes?