Origami Birthday Card

Martha Stewart had some "Antique-Style Valentines" in her Craft of the Day section of her website. I don't know about the antique part, but to me they looked like origami fun. I love origami and we had a 5 year-old's birthday party to go to on Saturday, so it was the perfect project for me.

They were super easy to make. Martha's direction are a little confusing. In the comments, there is a link to a video tutorial on another blog that make it so much easier to understand.

All you need is one square piece of paper. I used a 12"X12" piece of scrapbooking paper.

In the picture above, you can see how the finished project looks. It folds into itself and becomes its own envelope.

Here's how it looks when it's opened up. Blogger won't let me turn the picture straight! Sorry! I used paper that had a bar code and brand name written on the back, so I cut a 4"X4" piece of coordinating paper to cover the writing on the finished card.

At the party, I had so many parents asking me how I made it, that the birthday kid's mom brought out a piece of paper and asked me to demonstrate. Talk about pressure! I had to rack my brain and make it work on the fly. Luckily, my memory didn't fail me and was able to duplicate it without the tutorial in front of me.

A cool thing that I learned about these is that they truly are "antique-style valentines." The tutorial says that these are called "puzzle purses" and that they were exchanged as early as the 1790's. I love the history behind it. That makes a successful valentine even sweeter!