Contemplating buying Christmas Crackers, you gain a sense of waste and expense – they are hideously expensive and full of stuff no sane person would actually want:

…so I thought about folding some.

I am fond of a twist, and whilst exploring the maths of a hex  twist, I discovered a method for making a pentagon-based twist with rolled seam and nice turnovers that seems to do the job admirably and also naturally results from a square.

Pop goodies in one half, slide another on top and you have a cracker by design – sure it will not go bang but … so what, right? it is filled with stuff YOU would put in there and is hand-made.

Hand-made is all too often the best. Now to try this with some nice paper, looks like a right “cracker” of an idea however.

Scale seems to be the key – depends what you want to put in them. Chocolates and other treats might require squares akin to those cut from A4 sheets, these are lovely but tiny when made from 14.5cm squares on Yuzen 😛

With the addition of a “cracker” insert – that explody thing (bought a a local art and crafty shop for 50c a dozen), filled with treats they are even better than bought ones.

You can see how to construct and collapse the model via a video I made