Origami butterfly mobile
Several people asked about the butterflies over the new desk.
A few people wanted to know more about the mobile hanging over the new desk, and it is hard to see properly in the photographs, so: they are origami, folded from 15 cm (about 6 inch) square origami paper.
Where the paper came from
Clearing out a bedroom turned up an old packet of origami squares that had been in a drawer for years. That is genuinely the whole reason this exists. I had been meaning to try a folded butterfly since seeing one a reader had made, and here was the paper.
I could not find instructions for that particular butterfly, which is the prettier one. Searching turned up a different fold that works just as well and is easier to explain.
Folding
There is a video of the fold with this post, shot the same day.
Two things worth knowing before you start. Make the very first fold precisely. If it is even slightly out, the white reverse of the paper shows along an edge several steps later and there is no recovering it without starting again.
And the body at the end looks harder than it is. It took me a couple of attempts to understand what it was asking for, and after that it was quick.
A note on the instructions
The original post carried a folding diagram from another origami site alongside its own video. That diagram was somebody else’s work, credited as such at the time, and it is not reproduced here: a restored archive has no business republishing a third party’s illustration.
The fold itself is a traditional one and is not anybody’s property. It is usually listed under the water bomb base, which is where to start looking: the butterfly is that base with the side flaps brought forward and the body pinched in behind.
Hanging them
The frame was already in the house, so the butterflies simply clip onto it.
If you do not have one, craft shops sell mobile frames, or you can make one out of thin dowel and string easily enough, the butterflies weigh nothing, so the frame does not have to be strong, only balanced.