Holidays: Origami Gifts Ideas

Origami modulars can be fun and inexpensive gifts for the Holidays. They will look great if folded in nice papers and packed in matching origami boxes.
These are two of my favorite ones:

• Calendar "Pentagon" in a Tsuzura box (wicker clothes-box).

• Modular Cube with pyramids in a Tsuzura box (wicker clothes-box).

The Calendar "Pentagon" was originally designed by Tomoko Fuse, and designed as a calendar by Sara Giarrusso and Ramin Razani. You can find printable patterns, instructions, and more information about the calendar, in the Origami Deutschland diagrams page.
The Modular Cube with pyramids is a Sonobe cube, with inserts designed by Kunihiko Kasahara. The instructions can be found in the book Unit Origami: Multidimensional Transformations, by Tomoko Fuse.
The Tsuzura box is also a Tomoko Fuse's design. The instructions can be found in her book Origami Boxes.

I folded all the models with New Leaf Premium Banana Fiber Paper.
For the calendar I used the diagram called "Dodecahedron" large - 2013. Instead of printing one page per sheet, I printed four pages per sheet in landscape orientation, in letter size paper, so I got a smaller calendar (even smaller than the "Dodecahedron" small - 2013). I used 7" (175 mm) squares for its tsuzura box.
I used 4" (100 mm) squares for the modular cube with pyramids, and 8½" (213 mm) squares for its tsuzura box.

Thanksgiving Invitations - Pumpkin Tato Variation - New Video

I made a variation of my model Pumpin Tato (click here to see my previous post), that does not require to use ribbons to keep it closed.

The tatos in the picture were folded with 8"(200 mm) squares of scrapbook paper.

Here are the instructions:

Decorated Spiral Box

Many origami boxes show the two sides of the paper. My favorite paper for boxes is scrapbook paper, but sometimes it's not easy to find one that has a color or a pattern on both sides.
As an alternative, I decorated the white side of the paper with some drawings, as shown in the picture below.

The box was designed by Tomoko Fuse. The instructions are available in her book, Origami Boxes from a Single Sheet, ISBN 4480872035 (in Japanese).
I used two 6" x 12" (150 mm x 300 mm) rectangles of scrapbook paper, one for the bottom and another for the lid. According to the instructions, the folding sequence starts by dividing the paper into 5ths, both for the base and for the lid. For the base I followed the instructions, dividing the paper into 5 equal parts (2.4 inches each), but for the lid I folded one 2" section and then divided the rest in four equal sections of 2.5" instead (the 2" section is the one that goes inside when forming the box).
With this proportions the sides of the lid are a little longer than the sides of the bottom and the lid fits nicely on it.

Origami Spirals - Nautilus

The Nautilus is a very elegant model created by Tomoko Fuse.

The diagrams can be found in Tomoko Fuse's book, Spirals, ISBN 9783941327061. This is a beautiful book, with models that range from intermediate to complex level of difficulty.

I folded the Nautilus with a 12" (300 mm) square of scrapbook paper.