gratuitous gruidae

folding my way towards 1,000

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#990. Rowan and I made one crane each from computer paper. Here’s mine watching Sun and the Wolf play at Fodfest 2026.

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#989, made from the wax paper backing to the Visitor badge while at Willamette View. Photographed on the extravagant asparagus in Tom’s garden.

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#988, paper napkin ring modeled by my wonderful mother after a rhododendron tour followed by a yummy meal. The waitress was very enamored by this crane, so we gave it to her. She bustled away and put it in her till. Apparently another server at that ale house was given a tiny origami creature by a patron 20 years ago, and has kept it in a small box in her till ever since, so our waitress was delighted to join the club.

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#987. Juju’s ice cream cone wrapper, welcoming the Procession parade.

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#986, paper napkin ring. On a date with the handsomest chap in all the land, while the kids are in their Lego robotics class.

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#985, paper napkin ring holder. Modeled by the beautiful Christine.

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#984, made from a fruit by the foot wrapper. Pictured at the children’s museum on a kindergarten field trip.

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Beautiful Carol with crane #1, plus a companion crane made by Carol herself!

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Origami parrots at the Minneapolis airport Prince store. When I’m done with cranes, should I move on to parrots?

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#983, cider bottle label receipt modeled by Eliot, Nicole, Suzanne, Ari, Elana, and Ode the pug puppy after my grad school capstone reading. After 983 cranes I finally figured out how to non-awkwardly ask people to pose for a picture: “Hey, would you guys be willing to help me with a weird project?”

(If you think that still sounds awkward, my previous approach was to say, “Um, can you hold this while I take a picture of you?”)

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#982, with my cohort at my final (!) grad school residency. Without even asking, Sara tore her receipt into a square and handed it to me—have I ever felt so seen? She made a little hat out of the rest of the receipt.

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#981, made from a Starburst wrapper, flying through the air at 500 mph and being modeled by my lovely seat mate en route to Cancun.

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#980, made from a Nutcracker Brittle Theo’s chocolate bar wrapper, creating the star over our ever-evolving nativity scene. I guess I’d better save this crane with our ornaments in case I’ve finished this project by next Christmas!

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#979 with the Taco Tuesday crew, made from a Klondike Bar—special treat for Sean’s birthday!

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not sure where I stole this from, just discovered it in my ancient drafts.

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#809-#978. A few years ago I got into a phase of making tiny silver cranes from gum wrappers during meetings. I kept them in a small bowl and carried them through 2 moves (across the country, then across town) without counting them, because I was a little afraid I’d made so many it would turn out I’d already finished my project. But today I screwed my courage to the sticking crane and hung them all on a spare bit of fishing wire attached to a hanging ring. Turns out the fishing line was exactly the right length, and I had made exactly 170 cranes. 22 left to go!

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#808. Apple picking excursion with Nancy, Michelle, Cecilia, and Mary. (Andrea was supposed to be there too but got sick, alas.)

I spent ages scouring this photo for the crane—I knew I’d made one and I could even see the leftover scrap of paper napkin ring on the table, but couldn’t find the darn thing! Almost gave up and didn’t count it, but it turns out it’s on Cecilia’s shoulder.