Now that I have a young daughter, I’m trying to relive the pleasures of my childhood with her. One fun thing we were trying to do was make things out of folded paper (NOT origami!). I remembered how to make paper airplanes, and followed the instructions for paper boats from “Curious George Rides a Bike”, but my aging grey cells let me down in this case. I don’t know what the object was called, but it was basically a paper mouth. It was triangular in shape, it’s lips came to a point, and I’ll be damned if I can remember the steps to fold one. I tried to search for instructions on the net, but only came up with instructions for folding paper cranes and other Origami staples.
Anyone remember how to fold this little joy, or if you know of a website that has instructions? My little Emily will think happy thoughts of you if you can help.
Is it rather like a four-petal flower? Because we used to call those fortune-tellers.
http://www.scholastic.ca/point/activities/origami/
Well, kinda, in that they both were folded paper. This “puppet head” didn’t really do much, but we liked it in the 4th grade.
To describe it further, it looked like a crude, bird-like head. The “nose” came to a point, and it was vaguely clam-shelled shaped. You had to tear the paper on the edges of the mouth and fold them up to make lips.
I’m wondering when they’ll come up with a version for GameBoy…
I have “The Great Origami Book”, by Zulal Ayture-Scheele. On page 22 the exact fold you describe is shown in all its steps. It is referred to as a Salt- and-Pepper Dish when it is stood on its four points. The fortune telling connection is mentioned, as well as how to make it into a finger puppet. I seem to recall from the mists of time, that this is also called a May fold. We also called 'em “cootie catchers” when I was in elementary school.
I know what you’re talking about…I’m gonna take a sheet of paper and fold it, and describe what I’m doing. It’s been AGES since I did this.
Unlike many paper folding projects, you may use a rectangular sheet of paper. I believe that it doesn’t work as well with a square sheet.
Fold the paper once, short sides together. Now, take the outside edges of the paper and fold both so that the edge meets the crease of the first fold. This will give you three parallel folds. If you open the paper slightly at this point, it will look like a W with the various folds going this way and that. Now fold the paper lightly in half (actually, this works better if it’s not EXACTLY on the center, but just to one side of it) perpendicular to the other folds, creasing it in the center, but not making a firm fold. Allow the paper to relax, so that it is again in three firm folds with a crease marking the center of it. Open ONE fold, so that you have three layers of paper on one side of the fold and one layer on the other side. Fold each of the four corners diagonally so that the corners meet along the inner crease. Now fold the paper back again along the fold that you opened. Cut or tear (we always tore, because we usually did this without any sort of planning) the slight crease you made earlier in the center. This should be a very short amount, you are only going to make “lips” from this fold. Fold the “lips” to the outside of the paper, from center to each point. Push one finger into the center fold, opening the “mouth”, while the other hand squeezes the upper and lower portions of the beak together.
Embellishments include: coloring the whole sheet of paper, particularly coloring the lips yellow, orange, or red, adding eyes, and adding patterns. Hole reinforcements make dandy eyes. If you didn’t make the crease for the lips precisely on center, the larger half should be considered the upper half.
Have fun.
We used to call them “Cootie Catchers” - I saw some in the Current catalog for valentines day. I don’t remember what they called them.
I used to make those too. I think we just called them “mouths” or “beaks”.
But the coolest paper folding thing to make are poppers. They’re completely trivial to make, but still hard to describe. You take a rectangular piece of paper and fold it in half short-wise. Then, fold this in half long-wise. You then grab the two loose sides with your thumb and pointer finger while keeping the inside flap free to move. Hold up behind your head and give it a solid downward yank. The thing will let out a deafening POP!! when it fills with air and pops open.
(Okay, its not quite deafening, but still pretty cool)
Ahhh, they’re fourth-grade-style cootie-catchers. . .
Lynn–that was it! It was the folding of the four corners I’d forgotten. Emily says “tank you!”
Triagonal-- I remember those poppers, too, and they were awesome. There’s nothing little kids like more than a toy that makes noise.
You’re welcome. Don’t forget, the paper needs to be not too stiff, but not too flimsy. The puppetheads also get awkward if your starting sheet of paper is too big or too small. I made another puppethead out of a square sheet of paper, and it came out all right. But it’s good to know that rectangular sheets can be used, as so many paper projects require a square sheet.
I’m somewhat abashed to admit that I have used my sample puppetheads to attempt to terrorize my cats. The cats just look disgusted.