Origami is the traditional Japanese art of paper folding. The only limits on paper folding are the imagination and skill of the artist. One fun and relatively easy design is a paper bat.
Here's how to make a paper bat:
- Lay a square piece of paper on the table. Place it corner up, so it looks like a diamond. You don't need special origami paper [source: Origami-instructions]. The size of the paper will determine the size of the bat.
- Fold the top corner down to the bottom corner. Crease and open.
- Fold the left corner over to the right. Crease and open.
- Turn over the paper, placing it like a square (rather than a diamond).
- Fold the paper in half horizontally. Crease and open.
- Fold the paper in half vertically. Crease and open.
- Push the middle of the left and right sides together along the creases. Flatten the paper. You now have a triangle.
- Fold the top point of the triangle so it touches the center of the opposite side. You can see three triangle shapes on your paper.
- Fold the top layer of paper on each of the side triangles, so the bottom edges meet at the vertical centerline.
- Fold the flaps you just folded up, back behind the model. The tips should touch the base at the midpoint. Both the front and back of your paper look like a downward pointing triangle on top of a trapezoid.
- Look at the back of the paper. Fold the two points forming the bottom tip of the triangle up, so they extend past the top of the model. [source: Krohe]
- Turn the paper over to the front and fold the model in half vertically.
- Imagine a line running from where the hypotenuse meets the top, horizontal edge to the bottom corner of the vertical-side edge. Fold the top layer of paper up along that line and crease firmly.
- Flip the paper over and repeat the last step. These folds will be your bat's wings.
- Unfold the wings. Flip the paper over. Fold each wing up along the edge of the central triangle layer. The tip points straight up.
- Fold each wing in half horizontally, so the top tip comes down and touches the bottom corner. Unfold the wings.
- Stick a finger inside each ear and open to the front.