Origami for the Blind

Lindy's Box

A decorative box in family with the Spanish box. The inside is cube shaped. Triangles extends along each of the top edges and each of the side edges. The inside and the top half of the outside have one colour, the bottom and lower half of the outside have another colour.

Design
Lindy van der Merwe.
Type
Box without a lid.
Difficulty
Medium.
Paper
Square, 15 cm or bigger.

Folding

Start witht the inner colour in front.

Precreasing

This eases the later folding.

  1. Hold the paper with a corner in the top and bottom, and with the inside colour in front.
  2. Mark the diagonal by folding the bottom corner to the top, and unfold.
  3. Mark the diagonal in the other direction.
  4. The model is a square with a diagonal cross.
  5. Hold the paper with edges in the top and bottom and the inside colour in front.
  6. Fold the top edge to the bottom.
  7. Fold the front layer from the bottom to the folded edge in the top. Repeat behind.
  8. Fold the front, folded edge from the bottom top the top. Repeat behind.
  9. Crease well, and unfold so that the inside colour faces you again, that is, the centre crease is a valley fold.
  10. Rotate the paper 90 degrees to repeat the above in the other direction.
  11. The paper has an eight by eight square grid, and diagonal cross.

Now fold the multiform base.

Fold the corners away from the centre

  1. Fold the four single-layer points from the centre to the corners of the model.
  2. Fold the four two-layer points from the centre to the middel of the edges.
  3. The back is a smooth square. The front has a triangle in each corner, and between those half as large triangles point to the edges. In the middle the four smaller triangles delimit a square that later will become the bottom of the box.

All crease lines have been made or folded.

Opening the box

  1. Focus on a corner and the edges of a middle square.
  2. Stick two fingers under the edges and into the corner pocket.
  3. I use the middle and ring fingers, and hold the layers together by grabbing with a thumb and maybe the index finger on top of the outside.
  4. With the other hand, push the two neighbour edges of the outer corner towards eachother.
  5. The corner flattens vertically instead of horizontally. It stays the same size. In the corner of the inner square, a precreased line will pop into a valley fold going from where the smaller triangles meet and down to the corner of the bottom. The bottom will pop out as mountain folds in existing precreased lines.
  6. Repeat with the three other corners. At all times, make sure that smaller triangles stay in position, pointing outwards and downwards.
  7. If the flaps become chaotic, you may have to collapse the box and start over the opening.

Finish

  1. The single-layer triangles in the corners may be opened and lifted slightly upwards, so that they curver around the corner.
  2. Check that the bottom square, the corner triangles and the edge triangles all stand out well-defined.

Usage

Decorate the table, placing a small treat inside.

Make a nice variation by zig-zag pleating the top layer corner triangles before opening the box. Apart from looking decoratively, this emphasises the relationship with the Spanish box. It becomes clear that if you pull up the feet of the Spanish box on the inside, then you get Lindy's box.