Christmas Origami Instructions: Snowflake (Jared Needle)

In this video I'm going to show you how to fold
a snowflake designed by Jared Needle.
This model I folded from normal kami paper.
I started with a square that has
a side length of 24 cm (9.5 in).
Then the model is about 2cm high (3/4 in)
and the diameter - the distance between these two points of the snowflake -
is about 7.5cm (3 in).
This model is not folded from a square, but from a hexagon.
I have a video on how to get a hexagon from a square.
You can also use a pattern / stencil.
Talking about paper choice:
I used normal origami paper, often called kami,
which is white on one side and relatively light weight for this model.
But if you look closely
you can see that there's a hole right here
in the center of the paper.
There's a lot of tension on that point.
Kami isn't the perfect paper, but it's ok-ish.
I've even folded this from copy paper, which is much heavier.
It's a bit harder to work with, but that works ok, too.
If you ask me what is a paper I really enjoy using
one paper is Pacon paper.
I think it's called rainbow kraft.
I think it's available in the US and on Amazon.
So if you have access to that
you might want to buy this.
It's really, really very good paper for tessellations.
It's very thin, it takes creases very well,
and you won't get that small hole in the center of the paper.
You can also try using bread wrap or
baking paper, which is also very thin.
I haven't tried myself yet, so I can't tell you
whether you'd have that problem with the hole in the center.
So I'm quickly going to dash through making a hexagon.
If you need details just go on to the video.
So let's get started.
Fold in half.
Pinch a quarter.
Bring the corners to the quarter.
This usually doesn't give me perfect hexagons,
but I don't care too much.
Actually, I usually don't care too much to get a perfect shape with hexagons.
This hexagon now has a side length
of about 12 cm (4 3/4 in).
Now I've already got two creases on this paper.
But we need to add all of them in any case.
So I'm going to add the third one.
If you haven't cut a perfect hexagon
try to crease between the two points
rather than bringing these points to align the other ones.
Let's see. I'm going to be folding
a white - no, let's go with a colored snowflake.
So I'm going to invert those creases
so they are valley folds on the colored side.
I actually recommend using paper that's white on both sides.
In the video I think it helps to have a white and a colored side.
Then turn over and now crease
these halfway creases by bringing these two points together.
We're going to be folding a preliminary fold
on a hexagon. So we have to do that three times.
Then we can collapse.
Just take those two mountain folds - the creases are in the right direction,
it should work out ok.
And we've got three flaps on each side.
Now we're basically going to make a bird base.
I like to precrease
by bringing this lower, open edge
to the central crease.
Now you can see it's a preliminary fold
because in the center there's a corner of the initial hexagon.
If you turn it around
you have have something like a hexagonal waterbomb base.
There's just an edge here.
Now we're going to fold a bird base.
First precrease.
Then make an inside reverse fold.
I prefer making inside reverse folds
to get a bird base.
If a crease is a bit off, correct it right away.
Working precisely always makes model look nicer.
This model needs some precision, and it needs some origami skills.
But fortunately one of the hardest steps
is right in the beginning, so if you master that
- which I'm sure you will - then you should be ok.
We've got half a bird base here.
Unfold that again, and then you have
four more flaps, so you can do that two more times.
In this model there will be a lot of repititions.
For some of them I am going to fast forward.
[You can pause the video until you are done with the folding sequence.]
Let's do the next step.
This is the open, flappy side, and this is the closed side.
On the closed side we're going to take this edge
and align it with that central crease.
Make a strong crease, we're going to need it later.
Unfold and do the same thing on the other side.
The creases intersect right here.
We're going to fold through that intersection.
First pinch right there, and then align the point
with the central crease.
Like this. Make a very strong crease.
Then take this lower point and bring it up to that edge.
Again take the central crease as orientation to make it straight.
Then take that point again and bring it
down to the edge.
This is a small precreasing step
that is going to slightly
make the second to last step easier.
So, all the way in the end.
Then unfold that.
Now we want to sink in and out.
This crease we're going to sink in
and then this crease we're going to sink out again.
I'll show you how to do that.
We need to open up the model almost completely.
You'll see that this is the first crease
and that's the second crease.
This is the horizontal, central crease when the model is collapsed.
We're going to make mountain folds around here.
Some of them already are, some aren't.
If you can't see the creases all around
you have to make the crease [before we opened the model] a bit stronger,
when I was saying you should crease this really strongly.
It's a crease that's going to be
an edge in the final model, so you don't have to worry about
it being too visible in the end.
Just pinch that all around.
Then try to collapse it a bit, so that you can see the hexagon in the center.
Now we have a small hexagon
In the middle, and then a very small one close to the center.
We're going to collapse on the next one.
I'm going to do this as follows:
I'm going to take one hand and put in the back of the model.
Then I'm going to take these two fingers
and start pinching this.
I'm going to push this fold down
to pinch this together, and at the same time
my hand is supporting this point down here,
which is exactly that point up here.
So pinch this together.
I'm always using one finger to push this down to pinch this together.
Then ensure that this pinches together
up to that point I'm supporting. Repeat all around.
I'm making it sound quite hard, but I'm just trying to explain
how I collapse double sinks.
I hope you can learn something from it.
It's not actually as complicated when you've got some practice with it.
Then it looks something like this.
I'm going to open this slightly - you don't have to do that -
to show you that now there are valley folds all around the inner hexagon.
Then you can collapse the model.
Now only this section of the paper remains.
Now we're going to do some spread-squashs.
It's probably the hardest step, and the one before the 2nd-hardest step.
We've got some creases here already.
Let's make those a bit stronger
just to make it easer to perform the next step.
Before we were creasing through a lot of layers at the same time.
Now you are only creasing through four layers, so that's ok.
Up here there is an extra layer.
We want to pull that layer down
up until this crease. Fold along the crease.
Stabilize the model here, pull here,
push at this point to really get the crease to go there,
and then open this up.
As you can see the model does not fold flat.
Once you're at that point
and you ensured that the creases are in the right location
push on this point and that point to make them spread.
Did you see that? It went really fast.
I'll try to do it a bit slower on the second one.
I'm really putting pressure here, so that the paper tension
in this point is quite big.
I can press down on three points
and then push on that point.
And then it will start to collapse.
Then you want to make that
go along the creases that exist.
Sometimes it helps pulling these two points apart.
to make it pop into that crease.
I'm trying to really slow this step down
because this step can be done quite quickly.
Then you get something like this.
Now you want to fold this back up, but rather than just folding up
- this is quite important -
you first make this small inside reverse fold.
It happens almost automatically
You only have to go in with one finger
and then push up.
There are already quite strong creases there.
Then close the model.
Now you can do that two more times, so
there are four flaps left where the step isn't done yet.
Work on these two adjoining ones, and then these two adjoining ones.
Repeat the step. Don't forget to add the precreasing.
Once you've completed that step
we're now going to open one of these flaps
and then as before fold
the angle bisector by bringing this edge to the center.
Same thing on the other side.
Once you've folded both angle bisectors
we're going to go inside this layer
- this is the bottom with many points,
and this is just a single layer -
and we'll fold a valley fold on this crease
and a mountain fold on this crease.
So I'm going to put one finger inside these layers
and push these two layers together
and open this up.
It will happen almost automatically.
Then you want to repeat that step on the other side.
For that you open the model like this
and then pull on this single layer - just a single layer -
to get that paper to come out
and then push it inside.
Then you've created this central flap.
I'll show that again on the next one.
First fold the angle bisectors.
Then we open the model like that.
Then push this down,
the crease will go in the correct location.
Fold over, take a single layer,
and pull it to get that extra paper outside.
And then push it inside to get
this crease to be a valley fold.
And continue.
On the last one
it kind of has the right shape already,
but you still need to pull out that extra layer.
There's no flap down here anymore,
so you have to grab in here to pull the layer out.
It's quite important to do that all the way around.
Then you've got this.
Now take one of the thin flaps to the center.
There are thicker flaps adjoining it.
This flap has two points, one here, and one there.
This point is going to land right there,
and this point is going to land right there.
So how does that happen?
Let's just take one.
You have to pull it a bit, so that it goes there.
You can see the paper is 3D.
There's some paper tension here.
We have to make a squash fold there.
First press the bottom layer flat.
Then push the inner, top layer flat.
It should - if you work quite precisely -
fill that whole triangle area here.
Same thing on the other side.
Now this point goes over there.
Move it over.
Then flatten in the inside of the model.
It's a bit hard to show, I hope you got it.
If not, just watch it a couple more times.
Then flatten the top flap.
Precrease the center by bringing point to point.
Unfold and then
fold that that flap inside this pocket.
Repeat a couple of times.
Again fold over
so that one of the thin flaps is in the center
On one side this is already collapsed.
So it should be fairly easy.
So you can just work like that.
And on the other side
we're going to take that point
bring it over so it lies on that point.
This helps you get more precision.
Then the paper in here is 3D.
You want to push it flat.
So that all of that triangle
is hidden inside.
Then again flatten this area.
Precrease.
And fold inside.
And continue.
I like to balance out the model.
Once it gets too thick on one side
you can simply flip over some layers.
So, now every time on one side
the step is basically already done on one side
and on the other side you have to work.
This only works if you use adjoining
flaps that you work on. I recommend that.
You still have to do that step
just as many times.
But I think it's easier if you only have to worry about one.
On the last one
- because on the first one we had to do the step twice -
both sides should already
be squashed in the center.
The last one should be the easiest one.
And the first one the hardest.
I'm not working very precisely today.
It sometimes happens to me, too.
Now we're going to take one of these flaps.
Down here there's a white triangle.
That white triangle has three areas.
They will in the end form these nice snowflake tips.
So let's work on that.
You can see that there are some extra layers here
and there, and there's a third one there.
If we look at it from the side
just open one layer and then
do an inside reverse fold on one of those layers.
And on the other side again
make an inside reverse fold.
So now - if you look at this -
there's still that single layer,
and the other two layers I showed you before
now - instead of going outside - lie inside.
Then we're going to make a small precrease on this angle.
Take this edge and fold it to that edge.
Then we're going to put this around that central point symmetrically.
See that? It goes around symetrically.
And continue with all of the other ones.
Then you've got this.
Now we're going to go back to that stage.
I put the same number of layers on each side.
And now you open one layer
and on the second layer you take this top point,
open it up, and fold it as far as it goes.
So this point will lie close to the center, but probably not quite there.
Fold it down.
If this step doesn't work:
Do you remember the part where I said
you need to inside reverse fold when folding back up
after doing the spread squash?
If this step doesn't work, then you didn't
do that inside reverse fold after the spread-squash.
So, you can redo that.
But let's first complete one step, and then I'll try to mime that.
Then you want to fold that point back up
and then fold it inside the pocket.
I prefer to precrease this a bit. I take this point
and bring it close to the center, but not quite there,
because the paper takes up some space.
So I leave just a slight gap.
And then push it inside.
Now let's see whether I can show what happens
if you didn't do the inside reverse folds.
Oh, look, I forgot to fold one of the flaps inside.
So let's go to the other side.
The spread-squash is right there.
Can you see this? If you don't do the inside reverse fold
and you collapse it down like this
then this is what the step looks like.
If you fold it, there is no lock.
So instead, do inside reverse fold to get that lock.
Then you can only fold that far.
Then, again precrease, and put that flap inside the pocket.
But if you work precisely, you don't need to worry about that.
Repeat all the way around.
Once you've completed that step you can
put this into a snowflake shape.
Do you remember the precrease I did right in the beginning?
We're going to use that now, because this is the 2nd to last step.
You can also see this top point
has a big hole now, because I've been very rough to the paper.
This doesn't happen if you use more suitable paper.
Now we want to sink this point, so we're going to
pull this apart a bit. Be careful if
the paper ripped in that point.
Try to flatten that so you get that hexagon
to show up, the one we precreased.
We want to sink that now.
So what I'm going to do is
take these two fingers to sink and
push inside here, just pinching a bit.
I'm trying to go along those creases.
The precrease helps a bit. It's not strictly necessary, though.
I made the experience that it's a bit easier for people
if they have the precrease.
Once you've got that pinched for each one, you can close it up.
Then you've got that nice star shape in the center.
To finish off the model, we're now just going to
spread these corners.
So from the bottom, we're going to push up
and fold them up as far as they go.
I'm going to show this from the back.
Go on this side and that side
and then fold them up as far as they go.
And then your snowflake designed by Jared Needle is all done.
I really love this model, because it just looks
like a snowflake. It's not like a star, or some folded paper.
You can really imagine making this smaller and it being a snowflake.
Maybe a simple one, but a very nice one.
If you work with paper that has two colors
one side is almost white
and the other side fully colored.
But, as I said, I recommend using paper that
is white on both sides, or blue, or whatever color you like.
Hope you enjoyed this video, happy folding, see you next time.