Valentines day heart origami

Try this Valentine’s Day heart origami as a personalised way of showing your love

Looking for an original idea to make for that special someone for Valentine’s Day? Have a go at this Valentine’s Day heart origami. It’s pretty easy to do, and is a great way to show how much you care.

To start, you need a piece of paper that is the equivalent of two squares stuck together side by side. To do this you could either measure carefully, or follow these steps:

1. Start with a piece of paper of any size.

2. Fold it in half, and unfold, leaving a line along the centre.
3. Fold each side of the paper diagonally to this central line, and cut off the excess.

4. You should now have your piece of paper of the correct size. A rectangle, which when folded in half, is exactly square.

Now you are ready to begin folding the heart.

1. Fold and unfold diagonally both ways across each square half of your paper to mark a cross on each side. Two of these folds will exist already if you followed the method above to cut your paper.

2. Turn the paper over

3. Fold and unfold each half of the paper to the central line.

4.Turn the paper over.

5. Using the folds you made up until this point, fold one side of the paper in towards the central line. Fold the edges of the paper inwards as you fold. They should tuck under the flap you are folding to form a triangle shape. Do the same on the other side.

You should now have a square made of two triangle shapes.

6. Fold the two outside points of each triangle to the third, central point. This should form a smaller square, again made of two triangles. Do the same on the other side.

You should now have a big square, with two smaller squares inside it, each of these made up of two smaller triangles.

7. Unfold and flatten each of these 4 small triangles to make them into squares. The fold on the edge of the triangle should become the central line of the square.

You should now have a big square, with 4 smaller squares inside it.

8. Fold the two inside edges towards the central line of each smaller square. This should form a kite shape. Do the same for all 4 squares.

You should now have a big square, with 4 smaller kite shapes inside it.

9. Unfold and flatten each half of the kite shapes, in the same way as you did for step 7. This can get a bit fiddly, especially if the paper you are using is very small, so you can use a toothpick to help you unfold each flap, if necessary.

This should leave you with 8 even smaller kite shapes in the middle of your big square.

Don’t worry, we have now done all the hard bits. The rest is easy!

10. Fold the very top point of your big square down to meet the very bottom point, at the back of the heart. This should be really easy. If it isn’t, turn the paper by 90 degrees, and try again. It will work one way, but not the other.

11. Now simply fold back a tiny bit of each side of the heart to finish of the heart shape. This is done by eye, to round off the heart shape, so fold as much as looks right to you.

And that’s it! Once you have mastered how to do this Valentine’s Day heart origami, there are loads of things you can make and variations you can try as a gift for your loved one.