Origami Paper Circuits

Contributors: Sarah Al-Mutlaq

Choosing a Flower

There are lots of origami flowers from which to choose. There are a few things to keep in mind when choosing one, each discussed below.

1. Do you want to be able to see the LEDs or not: With an open flower such as this:

   
   Origami Kusudama Flower

   You can see the LEDs inside, which for most folks isn't a problem. However, for those who don't want the LEDs to show, you will want to look for a flower design that doesn't open and has at least one layer for you to put the LEDs behind:

   
   Origami Kawasaki Rose

2. When looking at the design of the flower, you are going to have to think about if there is a surface near the middle where you can put an LED. This is where things can get interesting, and you might have to get creative. I try and make as much of the flower as I can before it is all closed up/finished/glued together, and then I put in the LEDs right before finishing it. Sometimes there isn't a good place to put an LED. In that case, you can kinda "cheat" and insert a piece of paper with the LEDs connected into the center, and tape it in place. This worked well for this lotus flower:

Find a flower you like, get creative with it, and fold it up.

Here are the flowers I worked with and how to fold them:

• Here is a great tutorial video on how to make the five petal Kusudama Flower, done by Origami Instructions
• This video is a wonder tutorial for the Lotus flower done by ProudPaperOfficial
• and here is a video for the origami Rose by Carolzjh1 的频道. There are many variations on this kind of origami rose, so you might want to look around and find the one that you feels is prettiest and/or easiest for you to make.

To rate these from easiest to hardest, the five petal Kusudama flower is the easiest, using five full square sheets of paper that are glued shut and glued together. Medium difficulty would be the Lotus flower, which takes 12 half sheets of paper (6 full square sheets needed) rubber-banded together before the final folds. Lastly, the most difficult is the Rose (or Kawasaki Rose if you want to get really specific). This only uses one sheet of square paper, and all the folds are made before hand and squashed together. No tape, glue, or rubber bands are used for the rose, so if this is the flower you want to use, be prepared to watch the video a few times and to make a few mistakes before you get the technique down.