Iris Folding Papercraft Free Owl Pattern Template

A colorful papercraft owl named Twiggles, featuring green and patterned paper with googly eyes, holding a small item, on a white card background with a golden border.

Iris Folding Twiggles the Owl Papercraft

Have you tried iris folding before? This is a great pattern for beginners or you could try out my recycled square. You can find lots more of my patterns here. This design uses origami paper and some slightly thicker card (I’ll chat more about this later). If you’d like to find out more about the origins of iris folding check out this post.

Colorful owl papercraft featuring various green patterned papers, with googly eyes and a textured golden beak.

Twiggles is a wonky owl full of character. He’s based on a mini cushion that I made for my Mom years ago.

This website contains affiliate links. As an affiliate I may earn money from qualifying purchases. As an Amazon Influencer/ Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases, at no cost to you. Thank you if you do use one of my links – it helps keep my website going. Please see affiliate link and disclaimer page for more information.

This post will share with you a free Owl iris folding pattern template for you to use. Terms of use can be found here. To find out how to iris fold check out this post or follow along with the YouTube tutorial for this recycled square further into the post.

A colorful owl papercraft made using iris folding technique, featuring patterned green feathers, googly eyes, and a yellow beak, set against a rose gold background.

Navigate the Owl Iris Folding Post

How to Create Owl Iris Folding

A collection of colorful patterned papers in various textures and designs, arranged diagonally on a flat surface.

What You Will Need

You can find lots of the iris folding resources that I use here.

Pattern (free download below)
Card or card blank with outline cut out – you can use a craft knife or cutting machine
Blue tack
Scissors
Tape (best to be in a heavy tape dispenser that you can use with one hand)
Paper (Use recycled materials – inside of envelopes/ used packaging materials – or origami paper works well)
Sparkly card (optional)
Detail can be added using pen, paper, card, googly eyes etc. choose what you feel more comfortable with or what you have at home.

An arrangement of patterned and colored paper strips on a crafting template with numbered sections for iris folding, showcasing vibrant colors and textures.

What To Do

The pattern has a sheet which goes through exactly what you need to do to create your Owl. If you’re more of a visual learner you may find it easier to have a look at the YouTube video tutorial to give you an idea of how to begin.

What Colours to Use on Your Iris Folding Owl

Choose whatever colours you would like for your owl. I went for four different greens and brown feet. Most of the paper was origami paper. The sparkly origami paper I get from here. For this project I also used one colour that was more than my recommended 70/80gsm. It was some marbled card that I fell in love with. It makes the project a bit bulkier and I wouldn’t want to make it all out of card but I do love it!

Close-up of an iris folding papercraft owl design featuring various shades of green and intricate patterns, with a small heart shape in the center.

Card Blank or Mounted?

It’s entirely up to you if you’d prefer to work on a piece of card and then mount onto a card blank. You can work directly onto a card blank. I prefer to work on a blank card and then mount in general. For the owl I used a white aperture and then backed onto sparkly copper card.

Whatever way you choose you’ll need to make sure that you cut out the reverse of the shape onto your card as you work on the back of the design.

A colorful owl papercraft made using iris folding technique, featuring green patterned paper, googly eyes, and a heart detail at its center, displayed on a gold-edged card.

If you decided to work directly onto the card blank then using a small paper insert inside the card will hide your working.

Often I’ll leave corners very square but for this project I used a corner nibbler (corner punch).

A colorful iris folding owl craft with googly eyes and a corner punch tool on a purple cutting mat.

Free Owl Iris Folding Pattern Download

Use the download button below to get your free Owl iris folding pattern.

Adding Embellishments

A colorful papercraft owl made using iris folding technique, featuring patterned green paper, large googly eyes, and a shiny gold beak with a heart design.

When adding embellishments to your projects I often think it helps not to overthink it and go with what you feel comfortable with. If googly eyes are your think – great. Feel happier with paper and card cut out – go with it. Maybe you’d prefer a fine liner to add detail.

Top Tip for Iris Folding Paper

The paper you use is important. You really want to use paper that is between 60-80gsm. This paper is quite thin but makes folds easier and ensures your card is not too bulky once complete. In this project we’ve used recycled materials. You can use origami paper and this is a good term to search for when looking for iris folding papers. When purchasing be sure to check on the size of the paper as origami paper can be very small.

Various patterned papers in shades of blue and a hint of black, showcasing the materials for iris folding craft from used envelopes

If you’d like to find out more about the traditions of iris folding and using used envelopes then check out this post. I do love using recycled materials in my projects. Get friends and family to collect interesting papers for you!

Iris Folding Finds

I’m always on the look out for for iris folding resources. Here’s a few that we have that are good value:

Packs of interesting cards and papers are perfect for the centre of your iris folding designs. These can be thicker than what you’ve used in the rest of your design as there is no need to fold.

Find more free iris folding patterns here including heart, seascape, sun, bunny and rainbow archway.

Cutting Out Iris Folding Templates

When cutting out the Square you can use a cutting machine or you can use a craft knife. Yes, the scan and cut is so much easier and quicker but it’s still simple enough to do with a craft knife and much cheaper.