My origami Christmas continued last week, this time taking on birds.

I loved the idea of bird ornaments nesting in our tree, but all of the birds I found were dunked in lots of glitter and seemed way too fragile for our interactive toddler Christmas tree. Then I saw this photo and decided to DIY up some paper turtledoves instead.

This is actually very very simple, much simpler than the star garland in our entryway. The end result is very bright, fresh, and pretty. Backlit from twinkle lights, the paper birds glow in our tree at night. Perfection.

All you need is paper, scissors, a pencil, pen, and stapler (optional). I used matte poster board for the paper, and got 12 birds out of one piece. (Yep, another DIY project brought to you by Walgreens.)

First, I hand sketched a rough outline of a bird and cut it out. I have no idea if this is a shape any bird happens to be in the wild. But, it looks nice. Once you have one bird body cut-out, you can use it as a stencil for the remaining birds.

 

 

 

 

Next, I cut two rectangles of paper. No exact measurements, just worked with what I had — mine turned out to be roughly 3.5×6 inch rectangles and 4.5×6 inch rectangles. Just make sure one set of rectangles are narrower than the other (so that tail feathers appear longer than wings).

Fold both sets of paper up accordion-style. You want to fold the short edge and work your way up the long edge.

 

 

 

 

Once both pieces of paper are accordioned, fold them in half and crease. (In the birds on my trees, I also snipped the folded ends of the wings into points. I snipped the folded tail feathers to round out the squareness.)

 

 

Cut two slots in the bird’s body, one in the middle of its arched back, and one on its tail.

Thread the shorter folded paper into the slot to make bird wings. Thread the longer folded paper through the tail slot.

Fan out the wings to give them some body. Fan out the tail feathers and attach the two middle pieces with a staple.

 

 

Bean and I decided that the birds looked better with a small eye, so eyes went on all of them.

I had planned to hang them by thread, but then I ended up preferring nestling them into the tree instead.

 

 

 

Doesn’t that just look so happy?