Does your momma kusudama?

All it took was for the girls to see this in my hand.


Their eye brows arched.
Their foreheads got excitedly wrinkled.
Their pupils became little bulls eyes.

After all, who can resist making a 3D ball out of little paper squares?
Okay, maybe not ALL of us are as intrigued with paper crafting as my girls.

After my extremely thorough (wink, wink) 30-second tutorial, off they went with a pad of my Post-its. (I hadn't taken time to cut 60 3x3" squares.)

Mary Kate came back with this colorful first effort.


After I realized that the kids (minus Mikey) were indeed interested enough, I broke down and cut a bunch of little squares out of paper...in Mary Kate's favorite color--lel-low.

They folded every "petal".
I glued.


As you may be able to see, their efforts were much more impressive than mine.

Let's just say...
Our paper ball is not exactly German engineered.

Ours did not turn out quite as precise as the ones on Folding Trees. It took some wranglin' to squeeze both halves together while securing with tacky glue, but I was able to beat it into submission and form it into a spherical object.

Thankfully, after all materials were given proper time to cure (the glue dried while I was asleep), the lovely kusudama ball remained intact.

To have your own folding fun, start here for the tutorial to make your own kusudama balls.

Maybe we'll try this style next.

Ooh, and we'll use recycled materials--perhaps an old paper bag, our outdated atlas, or some left over gold or silver wrapping paper...

NOTE: Our children are 7-10 years old, and they are all able to fold the petals proficiently (oldest boy just wasn't particularly interested). The 9 and 10 year olds are able to glue individual "flowers" well, but it may be frustrating for them to attempt creating the entire sphere independently.