DIY: Origami Heart

My lil cousin, Variel, is quite an artist for her age.  Her drawings have won her family air tickets to Taiwan and Turkey in a competition and she is only 7 this year. One night, she brought a box full of Origami instruction books and Origami paper over to my place. She proudly proclaimed that it was her treasured find at Daiso, and that the dollar shop is her favourite shop because “everything is so nice and is only $2”. Such an adorable angel, isn’t she?

I asked Variel if she could make an Origami for me. She flipped through a few of her books, and explained to me that the patterns are arranged according to the difficulty level. She finally picked the Origami heart and asked what colour I would like it to be. “Red” I said, and she went about her craft. She was following each step printed in the instruction book very carefully, as if threading on thin ice. She was channeling all her energy and attention between the full colour Origami book and the tiny slip of red paper. “There!” she handed me the red heart after a couple of minutes, and beamed so happily I could barely see her eyes. She is such a sweetie pie.

Galen and I were on our way to dinner one evening when he realized that his transport card had ran out of value. He had to pay in cash and was given a bus ticket. A rare item in this era when everything goes cashless. He held on to the tiny white slip and I asked if he could make an origami heart for me. He looked at me with his eyes slightly widened, and I said “That’s what a boy would do when he takes the same bus as the girl he likes right?”

Galen worried for a few seconds at the possibility of a bus conductor, but got down to making it. Though he had all his attention on that tiny bus ticket, but unlike Variel, he was not following any known Origami steps. He just has this thing for making or doing things his way when it comes to crafting or creating. “Here!” he handed me his version of the origami heart a few seconds later and beamed proudly too. I held on to it dearly, knowing that this origami heart is the one and only in the entire world (universe even), created and given to me specially.

Now, there really is no boundary when it comes to crafting. We could have a full colour step-by-step guide, but that does not mean we do not get frustrated at it for being unclear, or frustrated at ourselves for not having a brilliant mind or nimble fingers. We could have nothing at all, just some random material, and we could just let our minds and hands carry us, and create whatever that they could come up with. Either way, don’t stop crafting, don’t stop creating, and don’t stop giving.