Ten Thousand Paper Wishes

Last year, I thought of doing a feature chronicling the creation of a vast collection of origami stars. It would span several posts as I gradually added more and more stars made of different patterned papers and materials. It needed a catchy number so I thought that "One Million Wishes" had a grand ring to it. Then my rational, analytic mind kicked in: just how long would it take to fold one million origami stars? Therefore, I did a little math. Assuming that it takes about one minute to fold a star (it doesn't really but I decided to give myself a little leeway in terms of time) and I spent about one hour per day folding stars, then it would take me 45.6 years to finish - WHOA! That was definitely not happening. Then I thought, 'Am I really going to count all the stars that I make?'. The answer is no but that's still no excuse for faulty advertisement ;).

So as much as one million is a sexy number, I have decided to lower it to a less sexy but far more manageable number: 10,000. Doing the same calculation, this could be achieved in 5 and a half months. Shall we begin?

Origami stars are my fall-back craft. Even though they don't serve any useful function (although, come it think of it, pretty much most of what I make falls under this category) they are fun, quick and almost meditative as you get into a rhythm of folding them. Whenever I browse through Chinese/Japanese novelty shops, I am always tempted to get more star folding strips. Anyone with an internet connection and a colour printer however, will find that there are hundreds of free patterns to be found on deviantart, pinterest, tumblr, etc. I came across this one on deviantart. It's by CandidCandy and you can find the printable sheet here. They would be great as baby shower decorations - provided that there are no children around (definite choking hazard unfortunately).

I am still on the hunt for interesting jars to display my stars in. I will probably be combing through garage sales come summer :)

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