Paper for water origamis channel

So, you want to learn how to fold and help us create more ornaments to exchange for donations. Guess what?!?! You're not alone. We've had people from all over the United States and even internationally send us folded pieces. We've assembled them, added a tassel and some cool beads and exchanged them at gift markets for donations.​

How do you get started? There are lots of books out there on the market. Our two favorite authors are Tomoko Fuse (click here) and Ekaterina Lukasheva (click here). If you order these books on Amazon, which I hope you do, please use Amazon Smile (click here) and designate KEIKI INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION (d/b/a Paper for Water) as your charity and we will get a small portion of the sale.


There are a lot of videos on YouTube which can help you learn how to fold ornaments (kusudama). I've included 3 videos here on the right to help you get started. The last one is in Spanish.

It helps if you get origami paper (Michael's and Joann's have paper) and you can order it online from Amazon Smile (click here). Use Amazon Smile and please designate us. The best size to learn how to fold is 5.875in X 5.875in or the 6in X 6in paper. But once you've mastered the folding, the pieces that we use are 7cm X 7cm or 2.75in X 2.75in (Yes, it can be a little confusing because some of the paper is made in the USA and some is made overseas, hence the inches versus centimeters problem)

​There are a lot of videos on YouTube which can help you learn how to fold ornaments (kusudama). I've included 3 videos here on the right to help you get started. The last one is in Spanish. It helps if you get origami paper (Michael's and Joann's have paper) and you can order it online from Amazon (click here). Use Amazon Smile and please designate us. The best size to learn how to fold is 5.875in X 5.875in or the 6in X 6in paper. But once you've mastered the folding, the pieces that we use are 7cm X 7cm or 2.75in X 2.75in (Yes, it can be a little confusing because some of the paper is made in the USA and some is made overseas, hence the inches versus centimeters problem)

These videos explain how to assemble them and by all means please do that for your first couple. That way you can see how good your pieces are. If you assemble them and there are big gaps between pieces and large holes in your ornament, it is probably because you were not very careful in folding the pieces. PRECISION IS VITAL in folding the pieces. It's not how many pieces you can fold but how accurately you can fold them.

Once you've learned how to fold them and mastered the accuracy, then you can put the folded pieces in a manila envelop and mail them to us: Paper for Water P.O. Box 720999 Dallas, TX 75372.

We'll finish the pieces out and use them in a gift market. If you do a lot and love doing it, we can help you keep track of how close you are to actually folding enough ornaments to help fund a well. Our most inexpensive well takes 125 thirty piece ornaments to fund.


Watch Angelica teach the most basic fold that we use to fold origami.

Learn more videos on representatives page.

More How to fold Origami videos


The Impact

You can help us change the world! Join our goal to fund at least one well a month this year by joining our Well of the Month Club and be one of the 500 world changers donating at least $10 monthly. Without the help of our many volunteers, partners, and representatives, we would not have been able to bring clean water to thousands of communities around the world.

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