decorate: diy origami fanwheels

A few weeks ago, the lovely folk at Bensons for Beds challenged myself and some other bloggers to come up with tutorials for festive crafts based on origami. At first, I jumped at the chance, but then as I read more about origami, the more I scratched my head and couldn’t work out my valley fold from my mountain fold. In the end I decided to go with an old favourite – super easy folded fanwheels, using the concertina fold. So here’s my contribution! (You can see the other bloggers lovely projects over at the Bensons for Beds Sleep School, by the way!)

You will need:
Lovely 12-inch papers in varius colours and prints (these are from StickyTiger) in a square shape
Scissors
Strong glue or a glue gun
String for hanging

1. Take your sheet of paper, and mark 1-inch from the end. Fold along the line, then fold back on itself. Repeat until you reach the end of the paper. (You should finish with both ends folded downwards – you might need to trim the paper to achieve this.)

2. Fold your concertina’d strip of paper in half, and join with a thin strip of glue to make a small fan shape.

3. Repeat another three times, then join all three fan shapes together into a circle.

4. Repeat the process with smaller squares for the top fanwheel – I usually find a 12 inch paper cut into four works well.

5. Using the glue, attach the top fanwheel to the bottom, and then finish with your embellishments. I used wooden stars from Wild Damson, but you could also use berries, small pieces of foliage, tiny ornaments…. anything that takes your fancy! 

Try experimenting with various sizes – you can make smaller ones to use as gift toppers, and really teeny ones to hang on the tree, or huge ones to string up into a garland. 

Many thanks to Bensons for Beds for collaborating with me on this post, and inviting me to join in with their challenge!