Folding paper - so very festive: Christmas papercrafts

Origami is apparently the new craft trend. I first tried it when I was about eight, with an American book with a woman wearing a sombrero-type hat festooned with beautiful paper flowers. This taught me how to fold a waterlily, which I've never forgotten. It comes in very handy with napkins.

Given that Hobbycraft says sales of origami paper are up by 20% on 2015, I didn't expect to have to ask a sales assistant to find some paper for me! First on my (never-ending, ever-growing) list of things to make was this origami Santa.

And as you can see from the picture, running a fingernail along the folds you make, so that they're sharp, is very important. And as you can also see, I didn't do that, as I was making it on my knee while watching the video on my laptop.

I also wanted to make lots of paper stars, having seen them as a cut-out internally illuminated version in Sweden (in real life and on TV) in everyone's windows at Christmas. Here's the first attempt, made watching this video. This isn't origami because it uses scissors, but it's a lot simpler than the Santa! I'll be making more of these, sticking them together in pairs, and stringing them on garlands.

Making your own Christmas decorations with paper is appealing because it's cheap and easy to get hold of (plain white A4 can be spectacular), so it doesn't really matter if you go wrong. I wrote about Christmas papercrafts to make with kids for Saga: all the classics, including paper chains and snowflakes.