How to Make a Paper Iris

Purple Paper Iris

Materials

1. A piece of A4 paper (color, texture and pattern can vary)

2. Scissors

3. Coloring Utensils

Steps

1.     Take a piece of A4 sized piece of paper, then take one of the corners and fold it to the other side of the paper to make it align with the opposite side.

2.     The piece of paper should look like a trapezoid. Then take the scissors and cut the bottom half of the paper to form a perfect square. Make sure you do not cut the other side of the paper, only cut the side that does not overlap with the folded area of the paper.

3.     Now with the perfect square, fold the square across in half to form a triangle. Fold the triangle again to make a line dent in the middle of the first folded triangle.

4.     Unfold the second folded triangle and you should see a line in the middle of the first folded triangle. Turn your triangle to make the 90 degrees corner face yourself.

5.     You should have a gap on either side of the triangle, so push your finger into the gap (you may hold down the bottom of the triangle if it helps) and bring the gap up, then fold the top corner down. Do this to the other gap too.

6.     You should have a square with four flaps after you have folded the two gaps. Take one of the flaps (it should have a gap in the middle) and poke into the gap, then fold the top of the gap down. Do this for all four of the gaps.

7.     Once you have done that, then you should have a diamond, kite looking shape that has eight flaps.

8.     If you have done this correctly, you should have a pocket on one side and if you flip to the other side, then there is no pocket. If you flip through all of the sides, you should see a pattern: pocket, no pocket, pocket, no pocket…

9.     Now have one of the pocketed side opened (the other sides can be folded down) and fold both flaps that are on the top on either side of that pocketed side into the middle. Make sure you cover the pocket. Then unfold the flaps, you should see two lines that intersect the line that the pocket has made.

10. Lift the pocket up and fold the two flaps that are on both sides inward to form a three perfect triangles (one triangle that is sticking up, and two triangles that point outward, one of the two triangles can be split), it might look like a spaceship. Fold the triangle that is sticking up down to cover the triangle that is split. Repeat steps 9 and 10 until all the pocketed sides look like the spaceships.

11. Now that all the pocketed sides are folded down, open the side that does not have a pocket. Once you have done that, fold the two flaps (that are in the opposite direction of which the small triangle is pointing towards) on either side of the non-pocketed side into the middle. Do this step for all four of the non-pocketed sides

12. The folding in step 11 may be difficult to fold, if so, then you are doing the step correctly. If the diamond shape now is thin, then it is correct.

13. Now twist the top side of the non-pocketed side downward to make the petals. Repeat step with all four of the non-pocketed sides.

14. Now you have a beautiful paper Iris!

Alternatives

Bouquet

1.     You may twist the petals in different ways, such as twist two of them instead of four to spice up the petals of the Iris.

2.     You can also color your Iris to match the real Iris's hues.

3.     Again, the color of your paper does not have to be white, I would recommend purple colored paper.

4.     Lastly, you can assemble many Irises in a bouquet of flowers.