Origami was always something I enjoyed as a child, fascinated by the different shapes and models you could make just from folding a sheet of paper.  When I received Origami Farm from Cico Books to review, I knew it be something I’d enjoy and exciting to share the joy of the papercraft with my children.

The Origami Farm book is packed with 35 different things to make, each set out over a couple of brightly coloured pages in easy to follow instructions – a far cry from the old black and white diagrams I desperately used to attempt to build from library books!

The book is divided into four chapters covering the seasons, with appropriately fitting animals and foods that you would see around the time in each one.  Each model is also given a level of difficulty from one to three.

As well as the glossy pages and beautifully illustrated book, a huge bonus for me was that at the back of the book was a plastic wallet containing 50 individually designed sheets of origami paper ready to create each of the designs within the book.  Each sheet was decorated appropriately to a design in the book to really help bring each model to life.

Miss M was very excited looking through the books and couldn’t wait to make some animals. We chose the chick first as this was an easy level one origami model.  I made all the folds required while Miss M looked on in awe – she was truly fascinated by what I was doing and loved the end result.

I then got challenged to make the sheepdog – and yes he took a little folding and unfolding but I got there and felt very proud of my result.

The next request was a pig…

And then Miss M kindly informed me that the animals were getting hungry and needed some food.  She insisted I made them some broccoli next so they had something to eat (bless her).

So mummy set to work on the broccoli.  And then Miss M and Mister B took the animals and their food over to their wooden railway where they joined the other animals and became part of the play set.

They loved the novelty of them, Miss M in particular was fascinated that I could turn a flat piece of paper into a 3D shape.  When I asked her what she thought of the designs she immediately said with a big grin on her face “they are fun, I love them, can you do some more please mummy?”.  How could I refuse so off I set to work making cows, horses, a butterfly, oh and some asparagus “as the animals really need that to go with their broccoli” says Miss M.

I loved the Origami Farm book, I thought it was totally inspirational in the world of origami, and with the included array of detailed papers to make your designs from this has to be excellent value for money.  Retailing at £14.99 I’d definitely recommend this book.  We have many more designs to make, but the fact that you can make them over and over with your own paper, I think this is a craft book that you would revisit many times.  The children loved playing with the finished models and it has totally inspired them in the art of paper craft.

All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions. We are not paid for reviews although we do receive the product to try out and enable us to write the review.