I am doing a theatre production of a japanese folktale, 'The Crane Wife', and we use giant origami cranes (some made by 8 foot by 8 foot squares of paper, and others by 16 by 16 foot squares of paper), and we are going to make 200 or so little, regular sized origami cranes to hang in the theatre's lobby. when looking for instructions on how to fold origami cranes, I learned about the art of Senbazuru: it is where you create 1000 origami cranes, and string them together in a nested fashion to make 25 strings of cranes with 40 cranes in each string. it is said that it brings luck to the person who folds all 1000 cranes, and luck to anyone you give it to. I am not really thinking about the luck, it just looks like fun. My aunt has one that her girlscout troup did, and when they were cleaning out the boxes for the troop, they needed room, and everyone else in the troop leadership thought that they should just through it out, so my aunt said she would gladly take it. I have only folded 2 cranes ever, and I am starting to get a sense for it. I went out and bought a 500 sheet reem of colored printer paper that has five colors, 100 sheets each, and I am going to cut each sheet into two 5 1/2 inch squares, which will give me 1000 origami sheets. I am thinking that if I do 10-20 cranes a day, I could get it done in a month and a half to three months.
No, but I've thought about it. It's a pretty daunting task for one person, to be fair, so if you're working toward making 1,000 by yourself, kudos to you! I'm very, very gradually working toward the 1,000 total. I fold cranes in "spurts" of a few dozen each, and then I get sick of folding them for a while.
As an Asian, I have had enough origami for one lifetime. ;P You can buy special origami paper, which will be much easier to fold than printer paper and the small details will turn out better. Good luck!
I looked into origami paper, but then cried at the fact that it would cost me around 100 bucks to make this, when I can work just a little harder with printer paper, and make one for 20.
