Kusudama Ornaments

I saw directions on folding/creating these Japanese Kusudama paper balls at a website called Folding Trees and really wanted to try it myself. (If you go check it out there are two parts to their tutorial for this.) The first one is using their original dimensions of 3" squares. But I ended up using 4 sheets of 12"x 12" scrapbook paper for one of these balls. I thought that this was quite a bit of paper and it's hard to get 4 identical sheets of scrapbook paper in a pad. So I thought I'd try reducing the size. The second kusudama ball is made of 2" squares. And I used just 2 sheets of 12" x 12" scrapbook paper. It worked out just as well. The smaller one is a nicer size for an ornament.

Let me tell you my experience in gluing this thing. I wanted it to dry fast because I didn't want to hold each piece as it dried. So I thought I'd use a glue gun. Well...there were a few time that it didn't stick because I was too slow in getting the sides together. And then it was difficult to get it aligned right as a whole ball because the pieces wouldn't fit together perfectly. I think since the glue was all hardened it wouldn't give a little for aligning into a perfect ball. So there are a few minimal gaps in the one I glue gunned.

The best tip is to just use Elmer's glue and use a paper clip or bobby pin to keep the paper together as the glue dries. So do the individual petals at one sitting. Then each flower at another sitting. And then glue all the flowers together in a ball in the final sitting.