How to Fold an Origami Diamond Base

The origami diamond base is a basic set of folds often used as a preliminary step toward folding other origami shapes. This base is an especially popular start for folding bird shapes.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Origami paper

1. 

   Start the origami diamond base with a sheet of square origami paper--any size--colored side down, white side up.

2. 

   Fold the paper in half along the diagonal, from left to right, then run your thumb or finger down the folded edge to crease it.

3. 

   Unfold the paper.

4. 

   Bring the upper left edge down into the center fold and crease the new fold. Lifting the opposite edge of the original crease, as seen in the photo, makes it easier to line the edge up with that first crease.

5. 

   Fold the upper right edge down to the middle crease. This finishes a basic origami kite base.

6. 

   Bring the lower right corner up to the original middle fold and crease it.

7. 

   Bring the lower left edge up the original fold and crease it, too. You've completed your origami diamond base.

Tips & Warnings

• While you can fold origami with any size paper, smaller sheets of paper are usually more challenging because the folds become quite delicate very quickly. So when you're first starting out, practice on big sheets of origami paper until you feel confident about your folding ability.