About

Hi, we're Pierre & Gilles!

Have you ever tried making origami from books, but found the diagrams too complicated? Then simply follow our videos to make lovely paper models, step by step and at your own pace. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced folder!

Since 2009, everything has been free: no account to create, no advertising on the site, videos with no diagrams to decipher, in French and English.

On this site and on our YouTube channel, Senbazuru Origami, you will find over 200 models of all kinds: traditional Japanese folds, animals, flowers, boxes, party decorations and useful folds.

Remember to subscribe to our channel to discover all our other videos!

Senbazuru? Bless you!

A senbazuru (or zenbazuru, せんばづる) is a garland of 1,000 paper cranes strung together on a thread. In Japan, the crane is a mystical and sacred animal, like the dragon and the tortoise. It is said to live for 1,000 years. Legend has it that anyone who folds 1,000 paper cranes will see their wish for happiness, health or a long life come true.

So a senbazuru is a gift usually given to someone who is ill. It can also be given to a newborn baby, or as a wedding present, to wish someone 1,000 years of happiness and good luck.

Would you like to learn how to fold the crane, probably the best-known traditional origami in Japan, and perhaps make a senbazuru of your own? Follow our video tutorial!

But the senbazuru became an international symbol of peace thanks to Sadako Sasaki. This little Japanese girl developed leukaemia after the atomic bomb exploded over Hiroshima, during the Second World War. She heard the legend and began folding cranes, wishing to get well. She folded cranes from any scrap of paper she could find. But as her strength faded, she understood that she would not recover, and she began to hope for peace in the world. When she died, she had folded 644, according to Eleanor Coerr's book; according to her family, she had folded more than a thousand. Her classmates finished what she had started.

Since then, a Children's Peace Monument has been built in Hiroshima. Every year, it is decorated with tens of thousands of paper cranes.

Sadako Sasaki's story is told by Eleanor Coerr in the children's book Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, which has been translated into many languages for use in schools. In French, it is published as Les mille oiseaux de Sadako (Milan Poche).

Our favourite places

Paper, books, paper-folding associations, designers and diagrams: see our selection on the Links page.