Origami Crane Tutorials

The origami crane is one of the more basic origami projects that you can undertake, it is not only simple, and it also has a long and beautiful history to it. Out of all the different pieces of art that are made today with paper, it seems that the simple crane is still very popular and very close to the heart of the people. The first time I saw an origami crane I was in the first grade and my teacher was teaching us all how to make them. Now at that time I was horrible and just could not get it right for the life of me, I was so upset that I could not make the crane that I decided that I hated origami and never really paid too much attention to it again, to me it just seemed like simple and meaningless art.

Now, all of this changed a few years ago when I went to Japan. I got off the plane and got something to eat; when I was done I noticed that there was a museum in the airport dedicated to the art of origami. Now I decided that I wanted to go and check it out, after all it had been years and the bad memory was gone and reduced from something that was painful to something that was just one of those things that children do. When I entered the museum I fell in love! Everything was so beautiful! I was so impressed that I ended up staying in the museum for hours just looking around at all of the different origami art.

I visited the museum three more times before I left Japan and even got to make a little origami heart. On my last visit to the museum before I left I bought a book and some origami paper to take home with me as I was now in love with the art and really wanted to make some new and beautiful creations. Now years have passes and although I can make different fish, or birds, or pretty much any animal now, there is something about the origami crane that is so traditional and magical that I always seem to go back to it. There is even an ancient legend in Japan that says that if you make 1,000 origami cranes that a crane will come and grant you a wish.

A sad story is connected to this as there was a young girl who was only two years old when the atom bomb was dropped; she was only a mile away from ground zero. As the years passed she began to become very sick due to an illness that was associated with the bomb. She spent a lot of time in the hospital and then remembered the old legend of the crane; she made the attempt to make 1,000 cranes but died before she was able to reach her goal. For this reason I always think of her whenever I make an origami crane and I always say a little prayer for peace on earth. I guess that is what these origami cranes mean to me, they not only represent beauty, and they also represent peace.