Starting the Cranes

We purchase 1100 sheets of 3in x 3in gold foil origami paper at Uwajimaya. We are using gold foil paper because that is the tradition in Joel's family.

Joel explained to me that the process of creating so many cranes was best done is stages. In this case there are three stages: Square base, Kite (bird base), pre-expansion crane.

 Square base

 Kite (bird base)

 Pre-expansion crane

This seemed boring to me but, I thought he knows what he is doing, so I sat down and folded 100 square bases.Working with the foil paper is different than using plain paper. It is some how crispier... for lack of a better word.

I practiced folding cranes with standard origami paper at work the next day. I started to feel confident in my crane folding ability. The next night I folded 50 kites. I decided that I could definitely fold a crane. So, I did:

This is the crane I affectionately call Crane Zero. He is actually quite awful, poor guy. Lesson learned: I need more practice.