The adorable, always humorous MBA Jane is my way of honoring our Sisterhood Merit Badge program, now with 6,691 dues-paying members who have earned an amazing number of merit badges so far—9,460 total! Take it away, MBA Jane!!! MJ
Wondering who I am? I’m Merit Badge Awardee Jane (MBA Jane for short). In my former life …
For this week’s Stitching and Crafting/Origami Intermediate Level Merit Badge, I began to see paper in a whole new light.
Little bits of trash that rustled through the alleyway? Origami would be-s.
Gum wrappers that mysteriously find their way into the bottom of my car? Paper cranes waiting to happen. Spearmint scented cranes, no less.
![](http://www.raisingjane.org/journal/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/800px-Thousand_Paper_Cranes_7115811393.jpg)
Photo by Michael Day via Wikimedia Commons
Wadded-up manuscripts and doodled-on sheets of lined notebook paper? Origami babies.
I collected and smoothed out used tissue paper, I hoarded paper grocery sacks, I bought stacks of scrapbook squares at yard sales, and I even began eyeing my trees with a gleam in my peepers (was there a paper-making badge?).
I was hooked. I loved having something to do with my hands when I misplaced my knitting needles or was stumped on my Great American Novel or couldn’t find the remote control. It gave me something to do when I was waiting in the coffee drive-thru lane for my Organic Almond Latte with Whip. Plus, it was fun making something out of nearly nothing, and I gotta say, my neighbor kids thought I was a genius. Forget balloon animals: origami brings a grin to everybody’s faces. (And they don’t pop or fly away. Score!)
To earn my Intermediate Level Origami Badge I needed to make:
- Three different kinds of animals
- Three different kinds of shapes
- Three different kinds of flowers
![](http://www.raisingjane.org/journal/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/origami-flower.jpg)
Photo by Caroline Gagné via Flickr.com
Only nine in all? Pshaw! Why, I could do that, no problem. I turned to Pinterest for some how-tos and inspiration, and naturally, I tumbled right down a bunny trail of distractions.
Pinterest can be detrimental to an easily distracted gal like Yours Truly. I tell myself to look for origami pandas and I end up baking an Oatmeal Cake with Pecan Glaze. I sternly get back to looking up origami swan nests and I find myself entertained for hours by mustache designing. I go back for origami stars and I binge watch gifs of kittens.
Sigh.
It’s a problem. These badges seem to take forever … maybe it’s me.
Me and my addiction to wine-cork art notions.
Double sigh.
Anyway, after finding some totes adorbs origami puppies (and also learning how to French braid a poodle, but that is neither here nor there), I finally folded my last crease. I had done it:
- An origami Dalmatian, a duck, and a dinosaur
- An origami heart, a star, and a box
- An origami tulip, a lily, and a pansy
It’s not every day you can add all that to your arts and crafts resume, chickadees.
(And learn to build a fairy house out of wine corks. Not to mention, the DIY plastic surgery. Though I may rethink that one).