Simple Origami Box

I've been doing origami (the Japanese art of paper folding) since I was about 6. My best friend all through grade school had moved to American from Japan in Kindergarten. We became fast friends and spent a lot of time together. I remember all the time spent at her house, where they all still spoke Japanese, the trips to the Japanese mall (then it was called Yohan, now it is known as Mitsuwa), watching anime and reading manga with Shiho translating everything for me, learning enough Japanese to insult someone (that's what's important when you are under 10!). I also remember Shiho teaching me origami and my fast obsession with it.

Nowadays I don't do it as much as I used to. I find neat ways to use origami for decoration or gift wrapping though. Sometimes if I have a small gift, I'll even make a box (and if you ever ordered from me when my shop was Caiti Scarlet, then you received your purchases in origami gift boxes). If you ever run into me at my day job, you will notice I tend to whip them up for small candies as well...

Because I am lazy and did not want to waste paper testing out different boxes, I turned to Google and found this little gem. Simple, and larger than the "standard" box I usually make (and was avoiding in order to fit all my mints in there). This is a great basic box, and it is so easy beginner's should not have trouble.

If you are interested in the mints, they are home made butter mints. I've been wanting to make them forever and found this recipe online. Just like bread, the humidity will affect your dough and I found myself using closer to 4 cups of powdered sugar. I also do not much care for peppermint, so I picked up some "Pure Mint" extract instead. It's kind of a fresh mint/spearmint mix. I also found myself using much more extract...at least 1 tsp, and probably closer to 1.5. Don't take this to mean you should use this much though, especially if you are using peppermint (I think it is much stronger). It was easy to add more in at the end, so follow Averie's advice

Fancy Bows

Well it's that time where we begin decorating for the next 3 months (at least in the States). Every year my mom gets pretty serious and has me help her with window boxes. Usually only for Christmas do I need to make fancy bows, but this year I will be doing so for Halloween as well (she got some pretty neat ribbon).

The first time I ever had to make these bows, I was a bit at a loss and had to google my way through the process. This is the first bow I made in this style:

and a picture of the entire window box n_n

In order to help anyone else that may be stumbling their way through the same process, I have decided to share this tutorial by Chica and Jo. The written part is very detailed and accompanied by a ton of helpful photos.

I also I found this youtube video by craftsdotcupcake that shows the process really well. She has a blog too full of other crafty ideas and tutorials.

I will make a small note...sometimes the ribbon you want to use doesn't lend itself to this specific design of bow. The ribbon I am using for the Halloween bows for instance is much to wide. I could make a bow in this style but it would be ridiculously wide. It also lacks wire, which I find lends itself to this bow style the best. Because of this, we had to settle for a different bow for the Halloween window boxes:

My mom's display in the front garden

For this bow I just looped the ribbon in an S instead of an O as in the tutorials, and because there was no wire edging the loops only spread a little bit which created a more "normal" style of bow.