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Wikipedia, which means that many of our articles are co-written by multiple authors. To create this article, 63 people, some anonymous, worked to edit and improve it over time. This article has been viewed 885,177 times. With a piece of paper and some clever folding, you can make a delicate origami lotus flower. This guide will help you get on your way by teaching you how to construct the “blintz fold:” the foundation for many popular origami projects, including the lotus flower. This guide will then teach how take that blintz base into full blossom! Create guidelines by folding a square piece of paper in half.
Line-up the edges and corners and make a solid crease. Unfold and repeat in the other direction. Be sure to line-up the edges and corners as cleanly as you possibly can. Fold each corner inward toward the center. Begin with one corner, pulling it all the way toward the center point and lining it up with the guideline-creases you made earlier. Once everything is lined up, fold and crease. Try to get the tip as close to center without going past it.
Repeat the previous step for each corner. Once each corner is folded you should be left a smaller square. The “blintz fold” is the foundation for many origami projects. Fold each corner of the blintz base inward toward the center.
Bring each corner all the way to the center point of the square, and line-up the corners, edges and guidelines just as you did when you first constructed the base. Make sure the folds are on the top of the blintz base when you begin. When you are finished, you should end-up with another square. You are essentially performing a series of blintz folds on a single piece of paper. As you did with the previous step, fold each corner of the paper inward toward the center, lining up all edges and corners. Work each corner one at a time and be patient. Flip the square over and make another blintz fold.
Once again, you will be folding the corners to the center point so that you are left with yet another, albeit smaller, square. At this point, the paper may be very difficult to fold. This time you will only be folding a portion of the corners inward. Make a fold that includes approximately 10-20 percent of the corner. The object should know resemble an octagon with irregular sides.