Origami Cube tutorial

I've been making a lot of these lately.

They're pretty addictive because they're like little puzzles. I'm never quite sure until the end if all the pieces will fit together, yet miraculously enough, they do. It's very satisfying. Kids love these cubes - both creating them and playing with them. They're lightweight and great for stacking or creating designs with. 

You'll start with 6 pieces of square shaped paper. I used standard origami paper about 15 x 15 cms or 6 x 6 inches, but you can use any size, as long as it's square. 

One tip: when doing origami, fold as precisely as possible and press down on the creases and folds to make them nice and sharp. That's particularly important with this cube. (I'll be doing other tutorials for simpler origami designs to do with younger children that are more forgiving). 

Fold it in half to create a crease, then open again.

Now, fold each side down to the crease and press down hard.

Now you have a rectangle. Turn the paper over (very important; you want the open fold to be on the bottom) and fold each corner towards the center so that you create a trapezoid. First one corner to the middle of the opposite side 

then the other corner in the opposite direction.

Next you will fold the corners of the trapezoid to the center on the opposite side so that you form a square. Make sure to press down on the creases hard. 

Now release those corners. Repeat the above steps for each piece of paper until you have 6 pieces that look like this. 

Now comes the fun part - assembly. Take two pieces and insert a triangle from one paper into the opening on the square of another paper. 

Then insert a second triangle into the other side of the same opening.  Each opening in each square accommodates two triangles from other adjoining squares. Keep inserting triangles into squares until all the sides are connected and a cube is formed.

Here's an example of the same cube in different colors, and what it might look like once you've fitted three together. They will be loose but will stabilize as you add more panels.

adding a fourth panel

tucking in the last few triangles..

You're done!