Origami Dahlias

I should be working on my lowercase letters tutorial and my fancy fonts tutorial but I'm not! I'm going to do this instead!!

This is one of the prettiest origami flowers I've seen. When I went up to Tehachapi a few months ago to take part in a paper arts workshop, one of the other presenters, Chila Caldera, was wearing a dahlia brooch. I went all little-girl and practically begged her to show me how to make my own. It wasn't a pretty learning process. We were in a very dimly lit room (it was a museum for goodness sake!) and I couldn't get close enough to see properly. Still, once I got it, I GOT it! Thank you again, Chila! BTW, visit her blog to see other great diagrams. I asked her if origami etiquette allowed me to post directions on my blog. It seemed that it was okay to do if 1) I made it clear she just passed on the knowledge of how to make the model, and 2) I made sure to give credit to the original designer, Hajime Komiya, who lives in Japan (neither she nor I have any idea how to contact him). She also said that she knew of no extant diagrams, so enjoy!

Materials:

6” square of paper (15cm) (I used a 12" in the example to make it easier to see) 

Your finished flower will be 1/4 size. A 6" square will end up being a 3" flower which seems like half size until you put it onto another square and see that it fits in one quadrant. Still with me?

Coordinating brad

Brooch pin, if desired

Prefolding

There are three sets of prefolds in the dahlia: the "cupboard fold" (steps 1-3), the diagonal fold (4-5) and the wonky cupboard fold (6).

A square piece o' paper

1. With the side you want to show facing up, fold the square in half.

2. Open it up and fold the halves down to the center fold again, like cupboard doors.

3. Do the same two sets of folds in the perpendicular direction.

4. Turn the paper over to the backside. Starting in one of the corners, fold the corner up to the first fold, second fold, third fold and finally all the way to the other corner.

 
5.  Turn 90° and do other three corners.

6.  Turn the paper back over to the facing side. Fold down at one of the ¾ folds.

Take the edge opposite it and fold it up to meet the top.

Turn 90° and do other three sides.

After all the prefolding is done!

The Collapse

You will now begin coaxing the creases to collapse into a smaller square with four squares on top.

In the center of your large square there is a smaller square. This is going to remain flat while mountains go up around it. Here’s how:

7. Beginning in the center of the outside edge, gently push in so that the valley fold pushes up into a mountain that goes up from the outside and down to the small center square. Don’t worry if it doesn’t want to go immediately.

Work on the other three center edges, pushing them in.

8. Pinch the folds so that they naturally fall into that valley, mountain back and forth thing they want to do. Keep the center square flat. As you can, pinch the center valley fold on the edge in.  Push the points down flat against the center square.

9. Squash the center points down flat into four squares.

10. Turn your piece over and tuck in the corners into the box on the bottom. This part is like magic.

 Depending on how accurate your folds have been, this part may be easy or a little weird. Go ahead and crease the edges down.

All tucked in nicely!

11. Working on the front side again, spread open two squares to reveal the crease between them.

Open up to show the crease between

This is the crease (red arrow)

 
Holding the center with a finger of one hand, Pinch it together gently in your opposite hand...

and guide the corner of it up to a point here, in the center of this square.

Go on to the next crease and pinch it up to the notch formed between the two previous squares.

Continue on around the flower, making twelve folds.

Around and...

around and...

around we go!

 
Turn it over and squash it down gently to even out the petals.

squish

You want the points nice and pointy.

See how some of the edges between petals bend upwards? That's normal!

Facing up again, take the left side of one petal.

Fold it down to the inside of the crease underneath it, creating a more natural petal form.

 

Creasing the petal down creates a 3-D look to the flower.


Put a brad in the center. Attach a sticky back pin to make it a brooch.

 Or, you can just use a tack and stick it to your walls!

 

I hope you enjoy making these. They are quick to do and make great gift toppers or decorations for your wall. I make them while waiting at different places (I now have 2 shopping bags full) and have dreams of covering a ceiling with them...