News: DIY Origami Christmas Tree

This is how my version of an origami Christmas tree turned out based on the instructions I posted awhile back. Cory also made a version from white glossy paper, which looks great. I opted for the green and brown look, but it wasn't easy.

I tried making a really small version first, with the largest piece being 3 inches, and the smallest 1.5 inches. I even got some fancy green paper with light shades of white, which looked like natural snowfall. But it was impossible with as many folds as it required, at least for a novice origami folder like myself. It was frustrating, but I finally tried again.

This time I tried with different paper, with the largest piece being 6 inches, and the smallest 3 inches, as Sara Adams did in her video tutorial I shared. Once I got the hang of it, it went smoothly (almost), but the smaller pieces were still difficult to fold. The designer, Francesco Guarnieri, actually recommends using paper twice the size.

Here's what it eventually looked like. Not perfect, but better than I expected after failing at my first attempt. With all of the folds, the green origami paper got kind of abused, so if I try it again I'd probably opt for thicker paper, like the paper I used for the tree base.

What really attracted me to these trees were the symmetrical octogram star polygons that the green pieces turned into. I wanted to take a bunch of pictures from the top to highlight this, but my folds weren't perfect, so it didn't looked like I wanted. The pre-folded octagons looked better before I got into the more complicated valley and mountain folds.

But it was still fun to try.

Next time I will probably try larger squares of paper, and thicker sheets, so the folds look more crisp and the entire tree is sturdier.

What does yours look like? Post a pic of your results in the comments below so we can check it out.