Origami Dresses

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This is my 4th Annual Book Inspired Craft Week, where each day this week I am sharing a favorite book and pairing it with a craft project inspired by the book. Most of the books that I have shared over the years I have done this series are ones that I remember from my childhood and this book fits in that category. The book that inspired today's craft is The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes. 

Because the hundred dresses in the book are drawings I thought it would be fun to do something that would kind of fall in the art project category. I ended up deciding to make origami dresses.

This was actually the project I was planning to post on Tuesday and missed, because I feel like the best way to show how to make this project was to make a video and I wasn't able to get my video edited in time. But I am finally getting it up today, with a video tutorial. 

For this project all you will need is some paper that you can fold. You can either use origami paper, or I used scrapbook paper. I used a 12x12 scrapbook paper pad, and cut the paper into 6" squares. If you use scrapbook paper just make sure that you are using paper and not cardstock. Some scrapbook pads are a heavier weight that doesn't fold well and you want to be able to fold and manipulate the paper.

By using different papers, with different prints and colors, you can create a variety of dresses just like the little girl, Wanda, in the story. You could even decorate the dresses with buttons, bows, ribbons, and lace, if you want. I chose to just keep my dresses simple paper dresses. 

You could make these dresses just for fun as an origami project, or I can think of a lot of fun ways they could be used in other projects or to decorate for different occasions. You could use them to make a card for an occasion that might involve a dress- a wedding, baby girl, birthday, etc., I think they would be super cute hung on a string with mini clothespins to decorate for those same occasions, maybe choosing papers to match a theme or specific color pallete. Or you could obviously pair the activity of making the origami dresses with reading the book. 

How to Make Origami Dresses

You will need:

• Origami Paper, or Scrapbook Paper
• Paper Cutter (if needed to cut the paper into squares)

Instructions:

I used a 12x12 scrapbook paper pad and cut my squares to 6" using a paper cutter, this step is only necessary if you need to cut the paper into squares or into a smaller size

To show how to actually fold the dresses I felt like it would be hard to write the instructions in a way that was easy to understand so the best way would be to make a video to show how to make them. Watch the video below to learn how: