Project: Recycle & Create.  Take a predetermined recyclable item, and create something fabulous with it.  The recyclable: gift paper.  The something fabulous: Gift Paper Frogs.  

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I’m really excited to let you all know about something fabulous I found.  It’s called Project: Recycle & Create. Basically, a group of like minded Eco-friendly peeps who like to make stuff, come up with various clever ways to re-cycle something, and create with it.  

Gift Paper Frogs

While we were gathering up all the red gift paper scraps and ends for our Heart Streamers and our Valentine Flowers, we left behind a lot of the green gift paper scraps and ends.  So when the challenge to create something from recycling gift paper, you can only image how excited I was when I realized I could totally use the rest of the gift paper scraps for origami frogs.

Now, I am by no means an expert in origami.  I would say I am even more unschooled than a novice.  I’m like the pre-novice newby. Fro real.  But frogs seemed pretty straightforward enough, right?  I muddled through the instructions in a Design by Djeco Origami book and by the time I made three I was cruising.  We had to make ours special by adding googly eyes.  Because, well, googly eyes.

Materials

• left over gift paper
• scissors
• googly eyes
• glue

Directions

1. Cut your paper into 7″ or 8″ squares
2. Re-roll the paper backwards so it lays flat
3. Place paper, print side down
4. Fold the bottom left corner over to the top right corner to form a crease on the diagonal, and unfold
5. Fold the top left corner over to the bottom right corner to form a crease on the opposite diagonal, and unfold
6. Fold in half, bringing the top edge even to the bottom edge to form a mid line crease along the center, and unfold
7. Turn your paper over and bring the mid line creased ends together, so your paper looks like a triangle, sitting on top of another triangle, with a pocket between them ( see image )
8. Fold the right bottom corner over the left bottom corner, to form a crease down the center, and unfold
9. Bring the right bottom corner of the top triangle so that the long side of the triangle lines up with the center line, and crease.
10. Repeat with the left corner of the top triangle.
11. Take the right tip, and fold it in half, back over on itself.
12. Repeat with the left tip.  These are the frog’s legs.
13. Turn your frog over so that the legs are underneath, and you’re looking at the frog’s back.  It should appear as a triangle (equilateral triangle) with two little legs poking out from the bottom
14. Take the right corner of the triangle, and bring it to the top point of the triangle.
15. Repeat with the left corner.  You’ll now have a diamond shape on top of those legs.
16. Fold the bottom forth of the diamond ( legs and all ) up, so that the bottom tip of the diamond is at the center of the diamond. 
17. Fold that same bottom forth back down on itself in half.  What you have now is a pentagon, on top of a trapezium, on top of two isosceles triangles.
18. Take the top point of the pentagon shape, and fold down both the right and left sides, to that the tips meet at the bottom line of the pentagon.
19. Exhale.
20. Add googly eyes.
21. Jump for joy, and celebrate.

Find some more awesome ideas on how to recycle and create with gift wrapping paper!

Stick Puzzles by Teach me Mommy
Gift Wrap Flowers by Peakle Pie
Gift Paper Frogs by Nemscok Farms
Scissor Practice and Games with Gift Wrap by Powerful Mothering
Coiled Paper Heart Craft by The Gingerbread House
Paper Beads from Wrapping Paper by Mum in the Madhouse
Scissors Skills Crash Course by Sugar Aunts
DIY Magnetic Bookmarks by Kidz Activities

Paper Collage with Flower Punch by Words n Needles

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