Dandelions are one of those flowers everybody recognizes and nobody quite folds, mostly because the fluffy white seed head is hard to capture in paper. This model skips that problem entirely and goes for the yellow flower instead, which turns out to be much easier than it looks.

The folding part is over quickly - triangles, a couple of pockets, a few flaps - and then the scissors do the rest. Round the corners, snip a ring of notches, cut into them, and the flat little disc opens into petals. Work at quarter size and one standard sheet gives you four flowers, which is exactly the right number to arrange into a small bunch.

This time I will show you how to fold an origami dandelion, one of the best-known flowers of spring.

There are three-dimensional versions and versions that use several sheets of paper, but here I have chosen the simplest way to fold a dandelion.

So let's get straight to it - here is the super-easy way to fold an origami dandelion.

How to fold an easy origami dandelion

We are folding only the flower head of the dandelion, so prepare one sheet of yellow origami paper. A standard 15 cm sheet works, but it is a little large for this model, so I used a quarter-size sheet.

Ready? Let's fold!

STEP 1. Using 1/4 size origami paper, fold it in a triangle so that the color is on the inside.

STEP 2. Fold it further into a triangle.

STEP 3. Open out the pocket.

STEP 4. Open out the pocket on the other side in the same way.

STEP 5. While holding down the closed corner, fold it along the line.

STEP 6. Fold the other side in the same way.

STEP 7. Turn it over and fold it in the same way.

STEP 8. Use scissors to round off the corners of the loose flaps.

STEP 9. Then, as shown in the photo, make about eight cuts with scissors.

STEP 10. Fold up the corners as shown in the photo.

STEP 11. Spread it out as shown in the photo so that it looks like a petal.

STEP 12. Cut into the notches with scissors to shape the petals, and the dandelion is complete.

Thank you for folding along!

The neater your scissor cuts are, the prettier the dandelion turns out. At quarter size you can fold four flowers from a single 15 cm sheet, so make a whole little bunch.