Here’s Day 11 of the 31 day calendar of blog post ideas for January:

Do a SlideShare that Explains an Idea. Use examples from other blogs within the presentation.

Hmmm, the topics are getting harder. Either that or my brain’s just not working too well. I didn’t post this yesterday because I was still thinking about what I was going to share. Well, since I couldn’t come up with anything, I’ll cheat a little and recycle something I wrote on another blog. I’ll use the old “I’m pregnant (I’m ready to deliver any day now), I haven’t been sleeping too well (which is true) and I get tired easily (which funnily doesn’t do anything to help me sleep better)” excuse.

Anyway, this was something I posted up on the Baby Blog when I was constructing a mobile for Gavin, whom we’re expecting to be born January 25 - or so the doctor says. I got the idea for making this when I was reading a couple of Christmas entries (Christmas Gift Wrapping Ideas and Tiny Gift Boxes) from Scribbit who writes about motherhood in Alaska.

So here it is:

How to make a “Three Coloured Polygon”

What you’ll need:

4 square sheets of red paper
4 square sheets of black paper
4 square sheets of white paper

You can choose to have any colour you want, actually, but for the sake of my explanation, these are the colours I’ve chosen.

Constructing a “module” from your polygon:

Begin with a square piece of paper.

1. Fold it in half to mark the midline.

2. Then open it again.

3. Fold one edge to the midline mark.

4. And then the other.

5. Open the sheet out again and fold one corner like so:

6. Next, fold the corner diagonally opposite.

7. Then fold the flaps down again.

8. Take the bottom right corner and fold it flush with the top margin.

9. Tuck the bottom right corner under the top flap.

You should now have the following structure:

10. Repeat with the top left corner

And tuck it under the bottom flap.

You should have something that looks like this:

11. Flip it over.

12. Fold the right point in.

13. And then the left and that’s the completed module for the box.

14. Fold it in half diagonally so you have the following structure.

Repeat the above steps to make eleven modules with the remaining squares of coloured paper and you should have:

To construct the polygon:

Take one module of each colour.

Connect the red and the white modules as you would if you were making the cube. Make sure the diagonal folds at the center of the module are oriented in the same way as shown in the picture below.

Add the black module with the diagonal fold oriented as shown.

Make sure each module has one flap tucked into the adjacent module so you have a structure that forms one corner of a cube.

Your final product should look like this:

Repeat with the remaining modules and make sure the colours are in the same orientation as shown below:

Once completed, you should have four sets of three cube corners.

Take two pieces. Each face should have three colours. For instance, if your main module for the face is red (as shown below), the two flaps inserted should be a white and a black flap.

Tuck in the lose flaps that have adjacent pockets.

You should start to see the polygon taking shape.

Take the third set of three modules and add it to your half completed polygon structure. Remember that there are three colours to each face. So if the main module is black and it already has a red flap tucked in, you need to orientate the white flap to be inserted into the remaining pocket.

Once again, tuck in the free flaps that are adjacent to empty pockets. There should be three lose flaps.

The second flap:

The final flap. Make sure all flaps are in place.

This should be the structure you have now (with three lose flaps):

Take the final piece of three modules and add it to your almost completed polygon, keeping to the rule of three colours to a face.

Tuck in all the lose flaps. It should be fairly obvious by now where each flap goes.

And you should have your completed polygon!