How to Fold a Traditional Origami Crane

The origami crane is one of the first origami creations. It was even published in the first-ever origami how-to book titled How to Fold One-Thousand Cranes. One-thousand origami cranes are given to those who are extremely sick, to wish them recovery. In modern times, one-thousand cranes are also used to wish a sports team victory. Have fun making this traditional origami, and I hope you have friends around if you hope to make one-thousand of them.

All you need is origami paper.

If you don't have origami paper, cut a 6-inch square out of printer paper. (Remember to keep the edges straight)

Fold the blank side of the paper together along the dashed line. The dots in image one should touch. Next unfold the paper. Repeat on the blue dashed line.

Fold along the diagonal pink line. The pink dots should touch. Then unfold. Fold in the opposite direction along the red dashed line shown in picture two. Unfold.

Fold the origami paper together so the gold lines in picture one touch each other. Remember to refer to the colored dots to help position the paper correctly. The end result should look like image two.

Keeping the open end of the paper toward you, fold the side edges so they meet the center fold. (Shown in image one) Do the same thing to all edges. (Shown in image two)

Unfold the flaps, and pull the bottom corner upwards till you get a flat kite shape. Do this on both sides.

Similar to step four, fold each edge of the paper towards the center fold. Then, as shown in image two, fold the side triangles up between the wings. Fold the wings back together.

The end result on the last step should look like image one. Next, fold one side so that it is curved. For the other, fold the tip down to make a beak.

Fold the wings on the red line on both sides.

That's it! Once you learn how to make the first crane it is easy to create dozens quickly.