My name's Sara Adams, and I discovered origami for myself during Christmas 2005. I've been hooked ever since. The intention of this site is to get you hooked, too. You've been warned! — Now go enjoy some instructional videos, pictures in the gallery, and all the rest of it. And most importantly, happy folding!

Onion Skin Paper Review

6 April 2012 - 10:40am — Ilan
Authored by Ilan Garibi and Gadi Vishne
Weight (gsm) Sizes Color Palette Texture Aging
35 A4; Letter; 84.5cm by 64.4cm White Cockled Many years
Attributes:
Wear and Tear Memory Forgiveness Tensile Strength Bending Restistance
n/a 8 / 10 5 / 10 8 to 9 / 10 5 / 10
Model Suitability:
Classic Action Tess. Complex Modular 3D Wet Folding
8 / 10 8 / 10 7.5 / 10 8.5 / 10 6 / 10 8 / 10 n/a
Final score: 8 out of 10
Paper type: 
Onion Skin

Back in the days before contacting your overseas friends was a moment away by e-mail, we had air mail. You wrote on one side of a piece of very thin paper and then folded it over itself to show the envelope side of the paper. The idea was to minimize the weight for transporting by air.

Kraft Paper Review

29 January 2012 - 2:29pm — Ilan
Authored by Ilan Garibi and Gadi Vishne
Weight (gsm) Sizes Color Palette Texture Aging
35 15cm; 30cm; 48cm; 35cm; 40 by 60cm Light brown Smooth and a little shiny on one side Unknown
Attributes:
Wear and Tear Memory Forgiveness Tensile Strength Bending Restistance
n/a 9 / 10 5 / 10 8 / 10 4 / 10
Model Suitability:
Classic Action Tess. Complex Modular 3D Wet Folding
8 / 10 7 / 10 8 / 10 9 / 10 6 / 10 8 / 10 n/a
Final score: 7.5 out of 10
Paper type: 
Kraft

Contrary to what many think, Kraft is a high end paper. In German, Kraft means “strength”. The name is actually derived from the Kraft process that converts wood into wood-pulp consisting of almost pure cellulose fibers.

Kraft has no lignin (or almost none). Low lignin is important to the resulting strength of the paper since it weakens the connections between cellulose in the fibers. It also has the tendency to oxidize, making the paper yellowish and crispy with time.

Related images

as selected by Sara Adams

Origami Design Secrets, 2nd Edition

31 December 2011 - 11:53am — Sara

Origami Design Secrets 2nd Edition by Robert Lang

Today I finally got round to adding most of my new origami book acquisitions of the last half year. Amongst them is also "Origami Design Secrets, Second Edition" by Robert J. Lang.

As someone asked whether it was worth the buy if you already had the first edition, I figured it'd be helpful to point out some differences and my thoughts on the question.

The first thing you notice when holding the second edition is that it's heavier. That's no surprise, as Robert Lang made some substantial changes - much to the joy of many origami enthusiasts. The first edition impressed with 594 pages full of high-quality content going into techniques, mathematics, and folding instructions. The second edition tops that by an extra 176 pages, an extra 30% of content! It's noteworthy that chapter 14 on algorithms (10 pages) from the first edition was removed in the second edition. While very mathematically inclined may have enjoyed the mathematical formulas and very theory-heavy chapter, I believe for most origami enthusiasts the tradeoff of removing this chapter to make space for other content was a good one.

Finalizing the Video - Closed Captions, Uploading, and the Like

13 December 2011 - 8:32am — Sara

The sixth and last article in my video creation guide just went online. This time it's about the finalizing tasks: adding captions, making the video available, and publicizing it: http://www.origami-usa.org/thefold007_video_diagramming_subtitles_and_pu...

Here's a quick overview of all articles in the series:

  1. Making Video Diagrams: A Comprehensive Guide http://www.origami-usa.org/thefold001_video_creation_guide
  2. Asking for Permission - the Why and How http://www.origami-usa.org/thefold002_video_diagramming_asking_for_permi...