Regular Pentagon out of Square Paper

A regular pentagon is a surprisingly awkward shape to make by hand. Unlike a square or a hexagon, its fivefold symmetry resists the easy folds — yet five-pointed stars, five-petal roses, and plenty of modular designs insist on starting from one.

The trick is to stop trying to fold a pentagon and start by placing two tiny reference marks. A valley-fold in half, two quick edge folds, and you have a heart point and a star point to guide everything that follows. Once the star point meets the imaginary green line, a mountain-fold and one last valley-fold set up the cut. Thirteen clear steps, every crease photographed, and a single straight cut delivers a perfect pentagon — no protractor required. Let's fold the pentagon.

If you want to make a five-pointed star or a rose with five petals, you need paper in a regular pentagon shape instead of a square. This page shows how to make an origami regular pentagon from a square sheet.

In this instruction, I used 15cm x 15cm origami paper. Of course, the folding method is independent of paper size.

This is the front side of an origami paper.

This is the back side of an origami paper.

STEP 1.

Start with the back side. Prepare to valley-fold.

STEP 2.

Valley-fold the paper in half. Prepare to valley-fold the right edge in half to make a marking.

STEP 3.

Valley-fold according to step 2. Be sure to make a small marking at the right edge. Prepare to unfold.

STEP 4.

Unfold the previous fold. Prepare to valley-fold to make a marking at the bottom-middle edge.

STEP 5.

Valley-fold according to step 4. Prepare to unfold.

STEP 6.

Unfold the previous fold. We now have two markings. The heart point is defined as the lowest point on the bottom-middle marking. The star point is the right-most point on the marking on the right. Prepare for a valley-fold so that the star point coincides with the green top horizontal line. *The green line is an imaginary line. You don't need to color the line green.