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What’s With The Origami?
Well, you see, I was working on concepts for the product photos on my website. I wanted to represent the primary ingredient of a perfume in the photo. You know, if the perfume had a lot of lavender, show a photo with the perfume bottle and some lavender in the background. Makes sense. I was going down the list of my ingredients and the trouble was, some of my ingredients do not grow around here, would not be sold by a florist or are out of season. Then it came to me. Origami flowers. Growing up my sister made a lot of origami, so I was familiar and had done some myself years ago. I started with a Rhododendron (pictured on the right).
What is Origami?
Origami is the Japanese art of paper folding. The goal is to transform a flat square sheet of paper into a finished sculpture through folding and sculpting techniques. Modern origami practitioners generally discourage the use of cuts, glue, or markings on the paper.
The small number of basic origami folds can be combined in a variety of ways to make intricate designs. The best-known origami model is the Japanese paper crane. In general, these designs begin with a square sheet of paper whose sides may be of different colors, prints, or patterns. Traditional Japanese origami, which has been practiced since the Edo period (1603–1868), has often been less strict about these conventions, sometimes cutting the paper or using nonsquare shapes to start with.
My First Paper Pieces Of Art
My first origami was the Rhododendron. That was an item I could only get a real specimen of a few weeks out of the year. I followed some online instructions and was very happy with the result. I then made some leaves to go with it. Next time I’ll use some darker green for the leaves and use glue instead of tape to attach the petals together.
I am not following origami in the strictest sense. My goal is to represent real life perfume ingredients, and sometimes that means being a little flexible. With the Lily I started with equilateral triangle paper as this allowed me to make 6 petal flowers which would be more accurate than 4 or 8 as other origami lilies had. I actually improvised with this one, making up my own pattern. The instructional I found did not pull off quite what I was looking for. The anthers and stigmas in the center are simply cut paper. The paper curling was a lot of fun. Tweezers gave me a lot of control and helped in me to curl the petals in different directions and angles to give the flowers a more life like effect.
The lavender is the most pure origami consisting of multiple origami pieces of a repeated pattern. The pieces wedge or pocket into each other creating the lovely effect in the photo. I am considering applying some glue just for reinforcement to reduce thee risk of the pieces un-pocketing during travel.
I found the origami frustrating at times as I attempted to apply a series of unfamiliar complex folds. Other times it was extremely boring, making the same folds repeatedly. It is certainly not as intellectually engaging to me as perfume making. But I decided I was just going to have to get used to it. Origami is a beautiful and impressive art form that perfectly captures in visual display the art and the depth of the perfume I am making.
From Prop To Product
My photo representation problem was solved. But I could not help but imagine…
At some point I will probably have a table at a market or festival. It would look so much cooler if I had origami in addition to the perfume. The origami would catch the eye. And its just cool! Obviously someone is going to want to buy the origami. My dad already wanted to buy a bouquet after I showed him the pictures.
Then it occurred to me. I have the aroma ingredients for each of these origami’s. Why not apply the aroma to the paper? My paper flowers could come pre-scented. The scent will fade over time, so I could also sell spritzers to “freshen” up the flowers. I was already thinking about making room scents down the line, so this all fits together nicely. No going back now!
A Lovely Gift
Initially I am listing for sale just a few origami flowers and one bouquet. I hope to add more later. You can purchase the origami’s scented or not scented. (spritzers refreshers are coming soon) I recommend when purchasing a perfume as a gift, go ahead and add on the origami that goes with it.
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