{guest blogger elisabeth: some origami}

A while back a client asked if I was “good at folding”. I thought of course I’m good at folding, who isn’t? And then I remembered that not everyone took origami classes for six years. I did, and it was pretty cool because every year we’d help set up the JAL tree on Park and fold the stars for the incredible tree at the Natural History Museum. My teacher was super cool and put honey on his french fries. One day he came over and taught my mom and me how to fold a baby grand piano, with white keys and everything. It took us about 3 hours. Very sadly he’s since passed away.

The photos here are from Joseph Wu, an origamist (I may have made up that word) who has a pretty neat website chock full of really intricate work that would probably take a lot longer than 3 hours to fold (or at least it would take me that long).

But here’s a neat trick, and probably the only thing that I remember how to fold because I’m in the habit of folding bills into peacocks and leaving them as tips at bars. It’s also a useful skill if the person you’re with is boring. I was able to find instructions for a similar (though I will say, not as cool) peacock, and if you’d like to give it a try click here. And don’t be offended if the bartender unfolds your tip and adds it to the jar. I got over it the first time it happened.