VIDEO: Easy Origami Owl With Homemade Origami Paper + Giveaway

*Compensated affiliate links may be used at no additional cost to you. No posts here are sponsored or paid.*

Happy Monday and happy Hero Arts Kit Day! 

We had a glorious weather week this week, and so lots of garden things are springing back to life. I'm anxiously waiting to see if my very first poppy experiment worked - the seeds are from my neighbors GLORIOUS poppy crop, and the way you "plant" them seems crazy - just flinging them on the ground in November, so I will be thrilled if it works. The neighbor I got them from is a Master Gardener, so I know I need to just trust the process, but even as a pretty patient person, it's hard with new-to-me plants! Meanwhile, the four little spiderworts I planted last year have gone absolutely insane over winter, spreading out like six feet in both directions. I'm not sure if I'm happy about that because they tend to look a little ratty at the end of our hottest stretch. We will see. 

I also made bulgogi, ssamjang and sushi rice Friday which was a delight as always - it's the homemade ssamjang that puts it over the top! You can find all three recipes on Patreon. My little curated cookbook over there has 25 of my MOST fave recipes already!

This month's kit is INSANELY beautiful. It reminds me of the beautiful Asian themed stamps that dominated the industry in the 90s and all the incredible things people made with them. It makes me happy. 

The stamp set in the kit is both layering and modular - so it brings a lot of possibilities. I'm telling y'all right now - if you don't all vote for this as the kit that comes back onto the website, I'm going to stop speaking to you! It clearly needs to win. 

I started this by stamping the water and the mountains in Blueprint Sketch and then spraying it - being very careful not to get water in the space where the crane is. I dried that, and then re-stamped the first layer of the mountains and the water in Indigo. I stamped the second layer, the crane, and the ducks in Nautical, and added white highlights - these new gel pens are pretty awesome - they come in white and in colors.

On the left, I used the stunning transfers in the kit - man I love these. The sentiment and die are from the kit - and the fonts are beautiful and delicate.

Believe it or not - this sneaky peeky card below also uses a die from the kit - look at all you get!

How could this not win the voting? JUST SAYING.

So for a TOTALLY different look, I used the other stamp set and this gorgeous circular screen die over gold foil paper. I colored the flowers with just a bit of grey OLO Marker and then added earth safe gold glitter in the centers.

Next - I took the Origami background stamp at its word and I made myself some origami paper with it! I stamped it on my fancy copy paper, which is the perfect weight and it's great for stamping because it's so smooth. I only stamped it on one side, and I ink blended the other side, but it turns out that was unnecessary, because you never see the back side of the paper in my little owl pattern I used. 

I've tried to master origami for decades, but I'm just not good enough at it to do the really complicated patterns, so I was THRILLED to find this book shortly after we moved into this house, because even I can do these patterns. You'll see how simple it is in the video - and it's easy to customize - I just made slight tweaks to get the two different owls. And the pattern allows them to stand up. So cute. 

Here's the video:

Here are all the addons. 

CURRENT COUPON CODES

10% off stamps, stencils and dies at TRHD here with UNDERSTANDBLUE

20% off anything at Glassboard Studio  - UNDERSTANDBLUE.

OLO MARKER

10% off the whole store at A Colorful Life Designs - LydiaFan10

Arkon Mounts -  - 20% off sitewide with code UNDERSTANDBLUE

Here's the rest of the inspiration hop!

Hero Arts

Hero Arts Creative Team:

Natasha Vacca

Dana Joy

Michelle Short

Jennifer Kotas

Rosie Lopez

Heather Ruwe

Mindy Eggen

Natasha Polite

Channin Pelletier

Rachel Kleinman

Jeannie Lieu

Seeka

Karen Brown

Charlene Madrid

Pocono Pam

Kailash Naidoo

💙💙💙 Lydia Fiedler 💙💙💙

Special Guests:

Nichol Spohr

Emily Midgett

Kelly Taylor