"Okay, for those of you who wanted to learn how to make cranes, here it is. The most important thing is to not get frustrated. Folding cranes is very hard especially if you have never ever done it before. Your first crane is liable to look lopsided and funky so don’t feel bad. I’ve numbered the steps so if you do run in to problems you can post a reply and refer to the step number and I can try to explain it better. Good luck!

1. Take a square piece of paper any size, but not too small. I recommend that your first time you use and 8½x11 with the bottom cut off so that you everything is nice and big and you don’t worry about wrecking fancy origami paper. Also make sure the paper is not too think because that makes it harder and more likely to tear.

2. Fold it diagonally into a triangle.

3. Fold it diagonally again.

4. Now one corner of your triangle has two doubled layers. Take the top most tip and open the flap, pulling the tip to the other corner. This should give you a square shape on top.

5. Flip it over and do the same to the other side.

6. Orient the resulting square such that the ‘solid’ point is at the top and the open flaps are at the bottom.

7. Take the right-hand corner and fold it to the center so that the bottom-right edge of the square lines up with the vertical center line.

8. Do the same with the left side.

9. Flip it over and do the same with both corners of the other side.

10. Now it should look like a kite.

11. Take the small triangle at the top and fold it down (just to make a crease line) and then unfold it back to a kite.

12. Unfold the kite flaps.

13. Take only the top layer and fold it up along the small-triangle-crease you made in step 11. This part is awkward. You are folding it into a diamond along the kite-wing-creases. The diamond is tall and skinny.

14. Turn it over and do the same with the other side.

15. Now you should have a diamond that has a slit down the bottom half as if it has legs.

16. Take the right top-layer leg and grab it at the right corner of the diamond and fold it in so that the bottom-right edge of the diamond goes along the vertical center line of the diamond.

17. Do the same with the left leg.

18. Flip it over and do the same with the two legs on the back.

19. Now you should have a diamond that is skinnier on the bottom half, but still has legs.

20.Stick your fingers through the side so that each is sandwiched in between a top layer leg and a bottom layer leg. This is not in the slit but on the sides.

21. Fold the two top layer legs together and fold the two back layer legs together. Now the slit should not show; the bottom of the diamond is still skinny, and the top now has a shorter slit.

22. Take the bottom diamond-shaped half (just the top layer of two thick layers) and fold it straight up to the top half.

23. Flip it over and do the same with the one on the back side.

24. Now you should have four tips all pointing up the same direction as each other.

25. Put your fingers in through the sides. Fold the parts in front of your fingers together and fold the parts in back of your fingers together.

26. Take one of the small tips and fold it over just a little to get a head for your crane.

27. The thick points are the wings; just pull them outward and downward (try grabbing them at the base to avoid tearing). After pulling the wings down you can also blow through a tiny hole on the bottom of the crane to make the body rounder, but this only works if the paper is fairly thin.

28. Congratulations, you now have a crane! If not, please post below!

29. Write a fun message on the wing like “Keep the leap alive” or “my name is Sam the leaping crane."