Kusudama Ball With Book Pages

I found instructions for kusudama flowers, and have enough basic paperfolding experience I didn't need too many details, but had more trouble with the ball part of the kusadama ball.

I found a lot of ‘make the flowers, now glue twelve together’ and one that looked promising but ended up being wrong. Which was all the bad words after gluing 60 elements together to have to start over.

So hopefully I'll spare someone else that! And if anyone has tips, please let me know.

paper (I used a mix of book pages and colored printer paper because I found that when using only book pages the flowers seemed to blend together)

white glue or low temperature hot glue

paperclips (ideally the small smooth finish ones)

toothpicks are entirely optional but I found them super handy!

Start with your paper. (I promise the book here lived a full life and was read many times before the binding was no longer repairable!)

Cut it into squares-I’d say 3” or 4”, I used three here so I could get 3 per page. For printer paper that gets you 6 per page. Each flower needs five squares of paper. And a sphere is twelve flowers, so figure 60 pages plus some extras just in case.

Fold one square in half diagonally, so it forms a triangle.

Next fold both outer corners towards the point at top. You’ll have a square on point again with two triangular flaps.

Fold those two flaps so they line up with the bottom edges of the square. You'll end up with an angular tulip shape.

Next is what’s called a squash fold. Unfold the flaps enough to get your finger inside, then squash it down so it follows the folds you already made. You should get a kite shape.

(This is one place a toothpick can be handy if you have trouble getting in the little pocket formed.)

Do the same thing on the other side.

Fold the top of the kite shape on both sides down so that they’re in line with the center point.

Now fold the former kite shaped flaps in half. You have the square shape again, but with two complex flaps on each side!

Make at least 4 more, then it’s time to glue.

You need to bring the left and right sides so that they face each other, without creasing the back. I tend to push the pack to curve it and have the flaps adjacent while I add glue to one side, then push them together and fasten both flaps with a paper clip until dry.

Each of these will be one petal.

Take one petal, run a thin line of white glue next to the

center seam of the petal, and line up a second petal on that seam of glue. Secure them together with a paperclip.

Attach a third petal by running a line of glue along that petal’s seam and lining up a third petal and securing with a paperclip. Put this set aside to dry.

Make another set with two petals, and let those dry.

Take the paperclips off both sets.

Put a line of glue next to the seams on both unoccupied sides of the three petal set. Nestle the two petal set in the gap, line them up, and clip them together to dry. If you have trouble pulling off the paper clips, I found using a toothpick to pull them loose was a huge help.

You have a flower!

Now for 11 more.

(I’ll meet you back here later...)

You'll need 12 flowers. Lining them in ranks like a flower army is optional! (I made 14 to give myself wiggle room on the color choices.)

Run a line of glue just in from the middle point on two adjacent petals of your first flower. Line up your second as best you can and paperclip them together while the glue sets. Add your third and fourth flowers the same way, they'll start to form a kind of cone shape inside.

The fifth flower you'll need to run four lines of glue, two on each of the adjacent petals on either side. Add that one in and secure with paperclips.

Now the sixth flower is going to get tucked into the hollow in the top. This one is ten lines of glue, one on the unattached side of each petal facing up. Do your best to line up that center flower with the rest of them. Each petal should end up meeting with two others at the tips.

Set that half aside and make a second one. (Take a moment to wash the glue off your fingers first.)

Time to glue the two halves together. Make sure you still have A LOT of paperclips left!

The two halves are offset by a half flower rotation, that way the petal sticking down from the top half will interlock (more or less) with the ones sticking up from the bottom half.

Hold the two halves together and shift them around to see if there's a color combination that you like best.

Once you've decided how you want them to fit together, start gluing. This time it's twenty lines of glue, two for each center petal and one for each half attached side petal.

Paperclip the two together as you get them lined up. (Try not to stress out too much about lining everything perfectly, I found that mushed the paper around more and made it softer and grumpier in the end.)

Let it dry, then start taking off the paper clips. Don't yank! You really don't want to tear all of your hard work.

Pull off all the paperclips that come off easily, then gently tug the ones that seem to be sticking. Again, using a toothpick can be helpful. I found where the glue softened the paper too much the clips sometimes dug in and sliding a toothpick under where it had dug in was a good way to get them to release with minimal damage.

And you're done. Figure out where you want to display it!

A few things that hit me along the way:

*Hold the ends tight! I lined up the top of the petals really carefully, but didn't pay as much attention to the point at the bottom. I think the ball would have interlocked better if these had been tighter.

*A downside of using book paper: directionality! It wasn’t until I made a few that I realized depending on how you fold the flowers you can end up with words going several different ways. If that’s the kind of thing that would bug you, make sure you’re always folding the pages in the same direction. (I was trying to avoid large amounts of white space, so grouped my petals by ‘direction’ before gluing into flowers)

*A downside of white glue: it makes the paper soft, and requires more surface contact than hot glue. My ball ended up with flat parts in the petals where they glued together and I think hot glue might get rid of or erase that part. It might also reduce the chances of the paper getting soft enough for the paperclips to gouge it.

*If you want to hang the ball, it's probably best to choose your length and ribbon before you glue the two halves together so you can tie it and glue the end in at this point rather than try to stick it in after the fact.