How to Make Beautiful Paper Butterflies

From ancient Japanese origami to Victorian paper crafts, humans have long been inspired to capture the butterfly's grace in paper form. Crafting paper butterflies presents you with a chance to do so—have a piece of butterflies' beauty. It’s also a good way to relax as it needs less concentration and has simple to follow patterns.

So, how can you do this? There are two accessible methods you can try— the concertina folding technique and the traditional Origami technique with origami paper. When using the origami paper method, you only need origami paper. But in the concertina folding technique, apart from using regular crafting paper, you will also need to use glue and a string among other items to create the paper butterfly.

As we prepare to go into a step-by-step on how to make paper butterflies, you will need:

Now let us look at the two simplest methods for making paper butterflies:

The concertina fold, also known as an accordion fold, is a zig-zag fold that allows the folded-up paper to open and close like a concertina or the more common accordion.

For this process, you will need to use a square piece of paper like an origami paper. You can find origami papers from your nearest physical craft store or an online craft store. Other types of crafting papers you will find in these stores include: 

To make yourself a one of a kind paper butterfly, follow the following steps and see what fun it can be.

Take your square piece of paper and line up one of its edges to the opposite edge. Ensure that as you do this, you are creating a line down the middle. Then press the paper firmly to crease it.

Unfold the square paper and use your sharp scissors to cut along the crease line. The creased line together with sharp scissors will make it easy for you to cut the middle section.

After cutting, you will have two rectangular pieces of paper.

Take one of the rectangle pieces of paper which you will use to create accordion folds. Hold one of the short edges on both ends and fold a small piece lengthwise.

Then flip the paper over and fold the small piece back onto itself. Repeat folding and flipping the paper along the entire length of the paper.

Once you are done place the accordion paper aside.

Note: The thickness or thinness of the fold is up to you, the important factor is to keep the folds consistent.

Now, take the other rectangle piece of paper. Then take its 2 longer edges and join them. Create a clear crease as you press down along the fold—clear enough to create a distinct line in the middle when the fold is opened.

Open the folded rectangle paper. Fold the corners of the short edge along the crease line to create 2 small triangles on both short edges. As a result, you will have a hexagonal shaped paper with 2 pointed ends. Make sure to keep the corners folded.

When creating accordion folds for this piece of paper(from step 3), make sure it’s the same size as the one you folded in the first rectangular piece of paper. Flip the paper over and on one side of the crease, create accordion folds towards the center.

When you have reached the center, go to the other side of the crease, flip it, and also create accordion folds towards the center.

Take the first accordion paper(from step 2), and carefully fold one end onto the other to create a crease in the middle and a V-shape.

Also, for the other piece of accordion paper, do the same and as a result, you will have 2 V-shaped pieces of paper with accordion folds.

Then join the 2 V-shaped pleats in the middle. You can pinch them together as you use a string to tie them together, or you could use a little glue to stick them at the center to make tying them together easier.

Now you have two scrunched-up folds that are held at the center. To get what you have been working towards—a beautiful butterfly, you have to gently pull the pleats apart. On one side, hold it at the center as you gently pull them apart to create 1 large wing, and do the same for the other side. 

Next, on the right and left halves of your paper butterfly, you could use glue to hold the upper and lower wings together.

Voila! A paper butterfly with two large beautiful wings.

Origami, the art of paper folding, has a long history that much of it has been forgotten. Origami is a Japanese word where ‘Ori’ means to fold and ‘kami’ means paper—kami changes to gami due to a phenomenon calledrendaku. Origami butterflies in Japanese culture are used to represent transformation and new beginnings and maybe it can be that for you.

Origami paper is thinner compared to regular paper and it creases better. It also cannot tear easily when you crease it. They are often made into perfect squares and for a standard origami paper, it’s white on one side, with a different color on the other. For this technique, origami paper is the only material you will need 

Get your origami paper ready, find a comfortable spot, and let's transform it into a beautiful paper butterfly:

Open the origami paper, with one of its corners facing you. Fold the corner onto the corner opposite you and crease it, to form a diagonal.

Then, take another corner—one that was previously on your sides and also fold it to the opposite corner and crease it. As a result, when you open your origami paper, you will have two diagonals intersecting in the middle.

Fold your origami paper in half and crease it. Open it, and turn it so that the crease formed is vertical to you, then fold the paper again in half and crease it at the center.

Now, when your origami paper is open, you have two diagonals, a vertical and horizontal line that meet at the center.

The origami paper should be open and flat before you as a square. Gently bring the right and left horizontal together by pressing them in. At the same time gently guide the top part of the origami paper to fold downwards as you hold the lower part down.

The origami paper top part will collapse onto itself to form a triangle shape along the diagonal creases you previously made. Then firmly crease the triangle.

The triangle you previously made has two layers. Turn the triangle upside down, with both the right and left sides of the triangle having two layers.

Fold the corner of the left top layer to the middle of the triangle and crease it. Then fold the corner of the right top layer to the middle of the triangle and crease it to create a simple diamond shape—the folds should not overlap!

The result of this step should resemble the following picture:

Flip the triangle over, with the previously folded part to be on the backside.

Roll the bottom of the triangle upwards and hold it in place(don’t crease) to create a little triangle on top.

The little triangle on top has 2 layers. While still holding the wide triangle bottom in place, fold the first layer of the little triangle forward and firmly crease it—this will be the head of the butterfly. 

From the 2 layers that were the little triangle on top, the second, bottom layer will form the butterfly’s lower wings. With the top layer of the little triangle folded over, the bottom layer is divided into two; to the right and to the left. While holding the top layer, gently bring the right and left bottom layers in the opposite direction—doing one side first makes it easier.

Crease the head of the butterfly again as you also do the same for the middle section which separates the right and left half of the butterfly.

Fold the edges of the butterflies’ wings and finally, your origami butterfly is good to go.

As you plan to use your beautiful butterflies outdoors or to make them last longer, use an acrylic sealer spray as a sealant.

Follow these steps to use it safely:

You can go a step further and make your paper butterfly more beautiful by using markers or colored pencils to add:

You can be more creative and add these beautiful paper butterflies to your items to make them more personalized. You can use them on birthday cards, scrapbook pages, or to embellish your gift wrapping. Your creativity with paper butterflies is unlimited!

So go ahead, let your creativity take flight with your paper butterflies. Decorate your journal, brighten up your living space, or share these lovely creations with classmates on their birthdays as a quick, lighthearted but genuine gift. The time it takes to craft these wonderful pieces and meditate on their beauty is always reflected in the final product. You can never go wrong with these!

Will you be making a paper butterfly today? Please let your creativity run wild with these small but mighty creations and share your unique paper butterflies with us! We’d love to see it!