Hop to it! Craft these delightful Origami surprise boxes from Laura Ashley wallpaper with help from our mate Brittany Jepsen of The House That Lars Built.

Easter traditions are full of fun surprises and yummy treats. I thought it would be fun to come up with something that expressed those traits with a new tradition of our own: surprise boxes. These are great fun because the recipient can blow up with the box themselves to discover the treats, or they can be blown up by the maker and stuffed full of treats. The Laura Ashley wallpaper I chose was the Mollie Spot wallpaper as it has the perfect pastel Easter palette. Isn’t it perfect?! It would be fun to place these in an Easter basket or just on their own outside a door ready to be opened by an eager child.

Materials: wallpaper, ruler, scissors, pencil

Step 1: Measure 10 inches both horizontally and vertically to make a perfect square.

Step 2: Cut out square.

Step 3: Fold one corner of the square to the other corner to make it into a triangle. Do one corner to the other and crease. Then pick the opposite corner to other side so that there is now an X creased on your paper.

Step 4: Your paper is now divided into 4 triangles that point to and meet in the middle of your paper. Using the middle of your paper as the meeting point, fold your paper so that the two triangles on the sides of the square are folded in half. This makes it so you have a triangle on the front and on the back.

Step 5: Using your front triangle, pick up the bottom right corner of the triangle and fold in up towards the point of the triangle. You should now have a half triangle on one side and a full triangle facing vertically.

Step 6: Take the vertical triangle and take its point and fold it towards the middle of the overall large triangle. Once this is done, you see that you have a slight “pocket” Inside your new small triangle. Take the top fold of your existing triangle and fold it to fit inside of this new pocket.

Step 7: Repeat steps 5 and 6 on the opposite side of the triangle.

Step 8: Now you should have a side that is completely folded and a side that is still the size/shape of the triangle you started with. On the side you haven’t worked with, repeat steps 5 and 6 on both sides of the triangle.

Step 9: Now you should have a hexagon shape. If you lift it off the table you see that there is a hole in the very top of the hexagon where your two opposite sides join. Blow air into this hole and see your box grow before your eyes!

Step 10: Fill box with candy and surprises!

Time to start a new tradition!

Photos by Trisha Zemp and Alexa Jorgensen