Well, I recently finished constructing a Senbazeru! It is one of those "1000 paper crane" things that the Japanese make. Originally they where made by friends and family for a member who fell ill, or suffered an injury. However, since then, they have expanded somewhat to also be used as a symbol of good luck!
Here are several that have been handed over to the local J-League football team, Albirex Niigata!
I decided to make my own for the Manchester Phoenix, seeing as how I could not be there in person to support the team! This Senbazeru can stand in for me!
However, making 1000 paper cranes, or Tsuru, is not easy, so I drafted in the students at Geos! I bought the paper, then asked them to make up the cranes, and they all, as a group, rose wonderfully to the challenge! So to all my students, a really big thankyou! I really could not have done this without you! Well, I suppose I could, but it would have took me all year! At best!
Anyway. For those of you who would be interested in making one, you need to be able to make a Tsuru, or paper crane!
So, here we go!
1) Take a square piece of paper. Not rectangular, square.
2) Next, take one corner, and fold it across to the other corner, forming a triangle.
3) Halve the triangle again
4) Next, take one side of this triangle, and squash it down to make a square.
5) Flip over, and repeat!
6) Now, turn it so that the open side of the square is away from you. The closed end, where all the folds are, should be towards you. Now, fold in the corners to either side of the central fold towards the middle.
Once finished, it should look a little like a kite, but upside-down.
7) Take the end of the triangle that is not folded, and bend it up and down to create a horizontal fold.
8) Now, unfold one side, and open it up.
9) What you do now, is tuck in the paper, so it is all folded inside itself.
10) Repeat for all 4 edges, so it now looks like a long lozenge.
11) Now, turn the paper so that the point that is split is away from you, keeping the 2 points that are joined towards you.Next, fold in the edges again to the centre, from the points that are away from you.
12) Repeat for all 4 sides, and its should now be a lot slimmer.
13) Next, open the folds so that the last set (11 and 12) are now inside.
14) Take the long, thin points and bend them up. These will make the tail, and the neck!
15) Reverse step 13, so that the neck and tail are trapped. Now, you can gently pull the wings down, and bend one of the points down, making the head!
This gives you a Tsuru! Well done!
Now, if you want to make a Tsuru for a Senbazeru, you need to modify the last step! Once you have finished Step 14, just twist one point down, dont fold down the wings.
In order to make a Senbazeru, keeping the wings up allows you to slot one Tsuru on top of another, and the wings help trap themselves, giving a little stability. As well as taking up a lot less space!
Once you are ready to make a Senbazeru, you need to get a long bit of string, and tie one end off with some kind of bead. Take the other end, threaded through a needle, and poke it through the small hole in the bottom of your paper crane. The needle should pass through the point in the back of the paper crane, between the wings. Do this on subsequent paper cranes, and you can push them together into a line. You can do this as many times as you like. Though be warned, a line of 20 will end up with a very short, but bulky Senbazeru, a line of 100 will give you a long, thin one, but much longer than you are tall! Mine ran to 50 per line.
Once you have all the lines ready, all you have to do is tie them together, and hey presto! A finished Senbazeru! A valuable experience, I think you will find!
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