Iris folding is a paper craft technique that involves folding colourful strips of paper to form a beautiful and elegant design that seems difficult but so easy to create. The centre of the paper pattern looks like a diaphragm of a camera lens, thus the name.

Today, we are making one of such beautiful iris folding pattern for your notebook cover.

Things you need:

1. Colourful papers (four or five).

2. Glue or tape

3. Pencil

4. Scissors

5. Empty grocery bag (you can use one colour wrapping paper)

6. Iris folding patterns

Note: To make iris folding, you can either draw a pattern of your own, or Google iris folding patterns to find loads of different shapes like star, heart, rhombus, doll, house, butterfly, etc. So choose whatever you like.

Directions:

1. Take the grocery bag/or wrapping paper for your notebook. Cut accordingly. Don’t paste or tape at this stage, just fold the edges and corners to form the crease, picture 3.

2. Cut out the pattern from the page and place it on the notebook cover in the centre and trace it, picture 4.

3. Cut the traced pattern out from the notebook cover carefully, picture 5.Put it aside.

4. Take the pattern and paste it on any other paper, picture 6. Put it aside.

5. To make iris folding you need to cut the colourful papers into two-folded half inch strips, picture 7.

6. Cut as many colours as you want, picture 8 (according to the pattern you choose).

7. When you are done with enough paper strips take one strip at a time then glue or tape it on the patterned paper in whichever shape it is starting from number 1, and follow the numbers to the last. Keep pasting the strips without turning the pattern, picture 9.

8. Remember this is not the front of the iris folding but the back of it which looks more like a mess and you shouldn’t be worried about that, picture 10.

9. When you are done with the last strip. You will notice the centre is with no colour and no number as well. It is up to you to fill it with one more colour or leave it the way it is. Turn it and you’ll find beautiful and elegant looking iris folds so neatly done. Put this paper behind the cut out of your notebook cover and an amazing cover is ready.

Published in Dawn, Young World March 18th, 2017