Origami Accordion Heart

We really like this origami accordion heart design. It does require some patience as it uses a series of valley, mountain and inside reverse folds to transform the paper. We consider this an intermediate origami. Knowing those 3 basic folds will greatly help in folding this origami.

Origami Accordion Heart Step 1: Start by cutting a square origami paper in half. We only need half a sheet of paper for this design.

We ended up using a large sheet of paper, 25cm x 25cm (~10inch x 10inch) and cutting that in half. The size of the completed heart is then approximately 2.5 inch or 6 cm.

Origami Accordion Heart Step 2: Fold paper in half on the horizontal axis. Crease well and unfold.

Origami Accordion Heart Step 3: Fold both top and bottom halves to the center. Crease well.

Origami Accordion Heart Step 4: Fold both top and bottom halves to the center again. Crease well.

Origami Accordion Heart Step 5: Unfold paper completely.

Origami Accordion Heart Step 6: Now starting from the bottom edge, make a series of mountain and valley folds, like you're folding a fan.

Origami Accordion Heart Step 7: Fold paper in half on the vertical axis. Crease well and unfold.

Origami Accordion Heart Step 8: Fold both sides to the center. Crease really well. We'll be referring to these creases later so make sure to go over them several times.

Origami Accordion Heart Step 9: Flip paper over.

Origami Accordion Heart Step 10: Make 4 small diagonal folds to shape the heart. Once again, crease really well as we'll be referring to those creases later.

Origami Accordion Heart Step 11: Unfold paper.

Origami Accordion Heart Step 12: We now have to recrease the folds. This is the key to this origami. You won't be able to transform the paper without good creases.

So take the time and crease it really well.

We'll start with the valley folds. Recrease the folds indicated below.

Origami Accordion Heart Step 13: Next are the mountain folds. Recrease the folds indicated below. Once again, this is very important for this origami so make sure to crease really well.

Origami Accordion Heart Step 14: OK, here comes the magic!

Start to push the paper from both the left and right sides towards the center. The mountain and valley folds you've made in the previous 2 steps will allow this to happen.

You will have trouble with this step if your creases are not well-defined.

View from the top....

View from the side....

Origami Accordion Heart Step 15: We now have to make several inside reverse folds. Please refer to our separate page on inside and outside reverse folds if you're not familiar with them.

Looking at the paper from the top, we now want to inside reverse fold 4 tips on the bottom, and 4 tips at the top.

Starting on the bottom left tip, here's the first inside reverse fold taking shape...

Here's the 2nd inside reverse fold....

Here's the bottom row completed....

With the inside reverse folds completed for the bottom row, the paper now looks like this from the side.

Origami Accordion Heart Step 16: Repeat Step 15 and complete the inside reverse fold for the top row.

Your paper should now look like this.

Origami Accordion Heart Step 17: Make 2 small diagonal mountain folds to shape the heart.

Origami Accordion Heart Step 18: Flip paper over. Make 2 small diagonal mountain folds on this side as well.

Origami Accordion Heart Step 19: OK, we're almost done!

Back to the top view and back to making more inside reverse folds.

This time, we've to make 6 inside reverse folds on the tips shown below.

Starting from the bottom, here are 2 completed inside reverse folds.

And here it is all done!

Flip paper on the side and your origami accordion heart is complete! You could glue this accordion heart to the inside of a greeting card and it'll spring up when the recipient opens the card!