No Christmas knitting here, folks, move right along

Well, I am doing a little tiny bit of Christmas knitting - the elephant from Last Minute Knitted Gifts - but only because I found my 9-month-old Italian-Aussie nephew a picture book in Italian (acquired in Melbourne, mecca of shopping) about an elephant. Since he won't be reading for a few more weeks at least, I thought he deserved something cuddly in addition.
Anyway, I have been engaging in my own personal version of the feverish Christmas crafting that the blogworld seems to be so taken by. (Will they finish it on time!? I can't wait to see all the faces of happy rellos on everyone's Boxing Day blogposts! And for the final hour doubts, Franklin has some encouragement for you.)
Every year about this time I decide I need to decorate the entire house in origami, not to mention giving origami decorations to all my friends, and creating enough extra origami decorations to sell at the local market in order to make my first million - or at least cover my bus fare home from Christmas lunch.
Of course, I always fall short of my goal and usually end up decorating with the same old orgami decorations I made years ago in an extra-motivated frenzy and buying gifts instead of making them and the market stall thing has never actually happened, and probably never will.
So this year, I am extra proud of my hand-made origami Christmas decorations in their hand-made origami boxes made in lovely sturdy but translucent paper, which will be reusable as a handy place to store said decorations for next year, or to put paperclips in, or something like that. Here they are with the lids off:
(Note that I have never managed to photograph origami in focus. I must get Ashley my photographer onto that.)
These decorations are the Butterfly pattern from Tomoko Fuse's Kusudama Origami, my favourite origami book. The boxes are a traditional design but I had to refer to my second favourite origami book, Amazing Origami by Kunihiko Kasahara, to jog my memory. Half a dozen or so Butterflies are strung on a length of fishing line so they can be hung (as seen to the left), or they look very nice just sitting in a bowl (or the box) on a counter.
These are quick to make, and by using some nice quality paper the end result is a little more lush than your average origami crane. If you've been tearing your hair out trying to finish some knitted gifts, give some origami a try.