Cranes

According to Japanese lore, folding 1,000 Origami Cranes is truly a labor of love. Tradition holds that the bride who finishes this task, called ‘sembazuru’, before her wedding day will be richly rewarded with a good and happy marriage. Paying homage to the majestic crane, which mates for life and is said to live one thousand years, the bride ensures her own good fortune.
Really, it teaches the bride the patience and calmness required for a good marriage because folding 1000 of those suckers takes a while.

They’re traditional ‘life’ gifts. Wedding, baby, funeral.. whatnot. You could fold 1000 for a friend or a spouse, or just for yourself to say you did it. Mine are mostly because I didn’t want to pay for flowers for the wedding, so I thought “What can be used as decor that won’t die and I can put together beforehand?” Origami was it, and the paper flowers aren’t as pretty as paper birds to me, so I went for it. 😛 My goal is to have zero flowers at the wedding. Cranes for my bouquet, cranes for boutonnieres, cranes in little cages for my maids to carry, cranes on the cupcakes in the table centerpieces, cranes strung from the trees… etc.

Right now the crane count is 280. I need to keep up the good pace. I counted how many folds each crane takes to make.. so by the time I finish with all 1000 cranes I will have made 28,000 folds.