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How to fold an origami peacock

Fold half a square into a narrow fan and round off its end: open it and the tail spreads into eight feathers. Fold a blue kite for the body and glue it in front.

You need: Half a 15 cm square, green on one side, for the tail, a 7 cm blue square for the body, scissors and a glue stick. Medium, 14 steps, about 12 minutes.

Steps

  1. Tail: fold in half. Start with the tail, green side up, long edge at the bottom. Fold the right edge over onto the left edge.
  2. Tail: edge to the bottom. Fold the folded right edge down onto the bottom edge, creasing from the bottom-right corner.
  3. Tail: and again. Fold the new slanted edge down onto the bottom edge again, from the same corner. Crease all the layers hard.
  4. Tail: round the end. Cut the end round through all the layers: from 6 cm along each edge, curving out to 7.5 cm from the corner in the middle.
  5. Tail: open it out. Unfold the last fold.
  6. Tail: open again. Unfold the next fold.
  7. Tail: open flat. Open the tail out flat: a fan of eight round-ended feathers.
  8. Body: new sheet. Set the tail aside. Take the blue square, white side up, turned like a diamond.
  9. Body: crease. Fold the left corner to the right corner, crease, and unfold.
  10. Body: make a kite. Fold the two upper edges in to lie along the centre crease, so the long point is at the top.
  11. Body: turn it over. Flip the kite over.
  12. Body: tuck the bottom. Fold the bottom point behind, so the body has a flat bottom.
  13. Body: fold the beak. Fold the very tip of the top point down to make a little beak.
  14. Glue on the tail. Glue the tail behind the body, the corner where the feathers meet hidden low behind it, so the fan spreads up around the body.

Ta-da!

Draw (or stick on white dots for) a big eye spot on every feather, two eyes on the head, and a little crest of three dotted stalks on top.

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