Do you remember those folded paper fortune-tellers from back in the old school yard? This romantic version of the origami toy is at Colloco Homeware & Gifts (UK). It’s both a toy and an art object — and maybe an imaginative 3-d greeting card for Valentine’s Day?

There was always one kid in the crowd who knew how to fold one. At our school, it was Judy (who grew up to make her living from an interesting balance of crafts and computers). She wouldn’t tell anyone else how to do it, and drove us all nuts — you know how 10-year-old girls can be! — but I picked up a fortune teller that she’d dropped, took it home, and dissected it carefully to figure out how it all worked.

You want to know how to make one? No secrets here!
Here’s a video I found that gives particularly clear instructions for how to fold an origami fortune-teller:

At recess or lunch break, or sometimes in a slow-moving math class, Judy would pull out a neat square of folded-up notebook paper from her back pocket and open its corners to slip in her index fingers and thumbs. The other girls in our group would gather around…

First one, then another of us would “pick a number” — the number of letters in the name of the boy we liked best, most often — and Judy would open and close the paper fortune teller, one direction and then the other, while counting down the numbers.

Well, here’s how Wikipedia explains the rules:

The player first asks a question to the person holding the fortune teller. This question will be answered by the device. The holder then asks for a number and/or color. Once the number and/or color has been chosen, the holder uses his/her fingers to switch between the two groups of colors/numbers that occupy the inside area of the device. The holder switches these positions a specific number of times, which can be given by the amount of letters in the color selected, the number originally chosen, or the sum of both. Once the holder has finished switching the positions of the fortune teller, the player chooses one of the flaps that has been revealed. These flaps often have colors and/or numbers on them, and the chosen flap often is the same as the color/number originally chosen. The holder then lifts the flap and reads the fortune that is underneath. Any one of these steps may be repeated to suit the user.

Remember it now?
I’ve been thinking a lot about fun grown-up crafty versions of old schoolyard games and toys lately, so we can expect to take a few more little trips down memory lane in the next few weeks. What other cool homemade toys and impromptu games do you remember, from when you were a kid?

Folding paper is always fun, and folded paper is always a welcome gift.

As a last-minute Valentine’s Day flourish, why not show you cared enough to go to all the effort of learning a few new tricks with your hands?

This clever origami heart with a bonus coin at its centre is the Kathleen Weller design called “Change in Heart,” folded by Michele Rousseau and discovered for us by the ever-loving (but now vanished) Idea Girl blog.

Allow me to introduce the lovely and talented Ching Ya, a dear friend and social media geek with a delighthful creative streak. Today, she’ll teach us how to fold our own paper stars in this photo tutorial. Enjoy! ~ Jen

The Cute Little Stars

Twinkle twinkle little stars
How colorful and adorable you are…

I’ve always loved them, it’s my dream to hold the stars in my hands and admire their beauty.

Guess what? My dream came true after all!

Cute isn’t it?

I sprinkle these little ones around my Christmas corner, along with the tree of course.

So, do you want to spice up your Christmas decorations with these little ones? I can assure you, by the time you finished reading these instructions, you’re gonna shout out, “OMG!! It’s THAT simple??”

How To Fold Your Little Paper Stars

What do you need?

A half-used colored/wrapping paper (I prefer recycled ones, you could use brand new if you like), a ruler and scissors. That’s it.

Are you ready to rumble?
Here goes:

Step 1.
Measure and cut a strip approximately 1cm width and 20-25cm in length (depends on your liking).

Step 2.
Do it as if you are making a perfect knot.

Step 3.
Make sure ‘A’ is on top of the tail. Then continue to tuck ‘A’ inside the hole.

Step 4.
Pull ‘A’ through gently and flatten the knot.

Reminder – Make sure ‘A’ is neither too long nor short. A considerable length as shown in the picture will be just right.

Step 5.
Bend the excessive end to the back. (Cut it off if too long.) Now a pentagon is formed.

Step 6.
Bend the long tail according to the sides of the pentagon. That is, go up from underneath the pentagon as illustrated, following the direction of the blue dotted line.

Continue the ‘pentagon-wrapping’ method (see next 4 photographs) until it almost reaches the end.

Here’s what your star will look like at this point:

Step 7.
Slip the tail into the body of the pentagon. Cut off the excessive part if necessary.

Step 8.
Hold your pentagon as shown in the next photograph. Press in hard until the pointed ends are formed.

Continue pinching with other sides until the star becomes “puffy”…

… and VOILA!!

Now you can carry on with as many of them as you wish. Even fill up a jar with stars, and give it as a present to your loved ones. Now they’ll never running out of wishing stars for Christmas!

Ching Ya loves traveling, photography, and acoustic guitar! She owns a blog It’s My Life ~ It’s Now Or Never where she talks about her interests in movies, music, events & occasions, fun sites, personal thoughts as well. It’s her passion to write and share the fun with her readers. That’s why she has a Christmas theme on-going right as we speak!It’s All About Christmas so why not check it out and get into the groove? Or visit Ching Ya at Drama Sum It Up, where she follows her favourite TV drama -– currently, that’s “Prison Break.”

The lily is one of those incredibly impressive-looking origami pieces — and it’s also, amazingly, one of the easy ones to master.

I’ve been folding up all the junk-mail flyers into whimsical origami flowers today, and if He Who Hogs The Power Tools wasn’t also hogging the digital camera at present, I’d be bragging shamelessly in photographs. But… le sigh. Next time.

Instead, however, you can ogle this lovely pair of flowers that were folded by Lisa Lam.

Lisa is the resident creative genius at U-handblog, where you’ll find an excellent origami lily tutorial to make your own exotic paper bouquet.