Nosy Crow | 978-1536202731

On Instagram recently, a friend shared a collection of books she’d checked out from the library. Among the books in her pile was one I hadn’t see before: ORIGAMI AND HAIKU, a combination of origami, haiku, and Japanese artwork. Each haiku is paired with a stunning piece of art from the British Museum’s collection. Alongside are step-by-step instructions for creating an origami figure. Each origami figure is identified by its level of difficulty, and there are 50 sheets of origami paper at the back of the book – plenty for making the thirteen different origami creations.

CLICK TO ENLARGE “Grasshopper” (woodblock print by Kitagawa Utamaro, haiku by Issa)

Read the haiku, make the origami, and enjoy the artwork! There’s even a QR code inside the back of the book that links to step-by-step how-to videos for each of the projects. (or you can follow the link HERE.)

CLICK TO ENLARGE “Grasshopper”

Will you give it a try? I did – watching the video, stopping to replay as needed. When the hands of the person making the origami in the video got in the way, I turned to the directions, trying to figure things out by looking at the diagrams. All in all, not bad for a first attempt!