DIY origami diamond

Because we’re still decorating our house, it means the Christmas decorating will probably get done on Christmas Eve.

But there are two festive decorations already up. They’re these gold paper origami diamonds I made a few days ago at a workshop at Saltaire design shop Rad Studio.

Rad Studio is a fab little shop that I’ll be sharing more about soon. When I was there, I took the opportunity to take some snaps of their lovely products and I’ll be chatting with owner Ali (whose taste is bang-on-the-money in my opinion).

The origami diamond workshop was the first class they’ve put on and it was perfectly judged – we were taught something unique, we were served beer, buns and chocolates and for all this and materials we paid just £8.

If you fancy learning a new skill this week, you can learn how to make and take home a Christmas wreath at Rad Studio on Wednesday – for only 20 quid.

Anyway, back to the diamonds.

It was a pretty straight-forward make but I reckon I need a little more practise to get a really neat diamond. You’ll see mine look a little scruffy where some of the corners don’t meet up perfectly.

You just start with a square piece of wrapping paper or similar in a design of your choice. These are the instructions…

One of the most important things to remember is to start with your paper pattern facing up (so the design ends up on the outside) and make your folds as neat and firm as possible.

You will end up with two of these shapes which I thought looked a bit like Madonna’s iconic conical bra!

You then glue them together (UHU glue is the best apparently) and, once dry, you can hang them by sewing a length of cotton into the top point.

I love them! I hope I get chance to make a few more before Christmas.

What do you think? Have you been doing much crafting for Christmas?