Precious Paper Katharine Kinney [email k.kinney@tiscali.co.uk]

kusudama paper flowers In Japan they were traditionally used as a ball for incense or potpourri but now they are for decoration or as a gift. You can make lots of these individual flowers and stick them

all into one giant ball to hang up – The Japanese use these the way we would make a wreath at Christmas, or why not make a bouquet?

Fold the bottom corner to the top. This will make a triangle.

Fold the left and right corners up to the middle corner. This makes a square.

Fold the same points down. The folded edge will line up exactly on top of the outside edge of the square.

Open up the flaps you have just created and flatten them.

Fold the top triangles towards you so they are level with the edges of the paper. (This will result in 3 little petals on the inside of your petal).

Fold the triangles back using the crease you made earlier and glue the outside triangles together.

Now make 5 more of these petals and glue them all together. Make sure you wait until the glue is dry after every petal and take your time.

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Precious Paper Katharine Kinney [email k.kinney@tiscali.co.uk]

How to make a kusudama ball

Start to glue the flowers together one petal at the time - this will give the nicest result. In the photo (right) you can see that you apply the glue a little to the right of the middle line. Hold the 2 pieces together in place with your fingers until the glue is dry. Then glue the second petal in the same way.

When you add the 3rd flower, there are 3 petals to connect. Make sure you work from the middle; glue, hold in place, wait until the glue is dry. Now work your way all around the first flower.

* thanks to FOLDING TREES for this tutorial. See:http://foldingtrees.com/2008/11/kusudama-tutorial-part-1/

After you have attached all 6 flowers you end up with 2 sets of half a kusudama. Now it is time to attach the cord.

I used 3 beads on the bottom. (Left pic) I made a knot over the first bead to lock it in place and then put the other beads on the string, locking it in again with an overhand knot.

Now take one of your 1/2 kusudamas and put some glue on the top. You can see the yellow glue I used on the right-hand picture.Glue your string down, making sure it is nice and straight. Now glue the other half of the string down, making sure this time that you put the glue exactly on the middle of the petal. After this is nice and dry, start gluing the other half of the kusudama on top of the first half. I normally work around from the top.

That’s it! You have finished your kusudama ball

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