Origami gift boxes in fabric or paper

If you're looking for a unique way to wrap a small gift, or would like to make a few last-minute ornaments or package decorations, why not try fabric origami? Armed with fabric stiffener and a few tools, you can get leftover fabric to behave just like paper... with the exception of the fact that you can just iron out any mistakes.

While the Fabric Origami web site discusses preparing the fabric, there isn't much information about what to do with the stiffened fabric: they want to sell you the patterns. (That's not going to help if you want to do this in the next few days!) Here are a few sites with free instructions for origami boxes, which you can make with fabric or paper:

• A basic origami box pattern.
• The Origami Resource Center's page of box patterns and tutorials: this site has dozens of links. Not all of the links are in English, but most have diagrams that are clear enough that it doesn't matter. This is the place to go if you'd like to make boxes in shapes like octagons or pyramids.
• Origami box video at Expert Village (3:18): Similar to the video above, but the demonstrator talks you through the project.
• Kristina Werner's origami box video (5:54) is probably the best of the three, showing you how to make a larger box with scrapbooking papers.

Wrapping paper is so often just thrown away; that's a waste of money and bad for the environment. This year, why not try to make the packaging part of your gifts? These origami box designs are simple to make, and recipients can enjoy them all year long. Best of all, they don't take much longer to make than it would take to wrap a present in the first place.

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