I've recently gotten into origami as a great way to make beautiful, but cheap decorations to spice up my tiny college dorm room. Here's a rather complex paper rose that completely bamboozled me the first time I tried to make it. Now that I've gotten the hang of it however, I thought it would be an interesting challenge to share with you guys! This paper rose is beautiful on its own, but can also be modified/combined with other crafts to produce even more creative projects!

Step 1: Fold an 8x8 Grid

As with the large majority of all origami folds, start with a square sheet of paper. Fold the paper into an 8x8 grid by continually folding the paper in halves lengthwise and widthwise.

Step 2: Diagonal Folds

Fold the square sheet of paper from corner to corner to make two diagonal folds. Then unfold it again. These past two steps we have been folding and unfolding, so you may be wondering: why? The creases we produce in the sheet of paper will be our primary guidance in later, more complicated steps.

Step 3: Dog Ear the Corners

Fold a dog ear onto each of the four corners to the grid point on the 2nd row and 2nd column from each corner.

Step 4: More Creases

Now, take one of the corner, and bring it along the diagonal to the opposing corner. Crease it, then open it up.
Repeat this for the rest of the 3 corners,

Step 5: Fold Triangles

On both sides of each of the 4 dog ears, we need to fold smaller triangles (seen as a crease in the first picture). Fold the triangles by making a diagonal crease in the smaller grid squares next to the dog ears.

Step 6: Fold a Square in the Middle

Fold the origami in half twice on two axes, making sure that the dog ears are on the outside. This will create a sharp triangular tip from the center of the paper. Crease this tip up so that the triangle meets with the closest previous crease marks.

Step 7: Diamond Fold

This is a special origami technique in and of itself. There are many resources explaining how to make this origami like this one: http://bloom4ever.com/howto/howto06.php. (And they'll explain it much better than me!)

Step 8: Pop the Creases

Flip the origami paper over so that you can't see the square in the center. You should see four different flaps. Lifting up a flap, you should be able to see a line from the corner - pop up this line, and you can create a 3 dimensional fold like the one shown in the first picture. Repeat this step another 3 times for the other flaps.

Step 9: Collapse the Petals

This step is extremely difficult, so have some patience.

In each of the 3-D folds that we just created, there is a long and short side of the petal (I noted these in the pictures in the last step).

Collapse the triangle crease on the short side of the petal.
This part is hard because we don't have creases to guide us. In the first picture, I've noted "Square 1/2". We need to make a continuous diagonal crease across these two squares
Now collapse the origami "towards the left side" across the diagonal fold you just created - this should create picture 2.
Get from picture 2 to 3 by folding over the flap of paper in a corner to make it a pointy triangle.

Step 10: Form the Bottom

Once you've gotten past the last step, you should have something similar to the first picture, with four different corners that are sticking up. Form the bottom of the rose by folding each corner over the over - tuck the last corner underneath the first one to produce the third picture.

Step 11: Open It Up!

Flip it over, and it's finally looking like a complete rose. Carefully open up the hole in the center of the flower to make it "bloom".

Step 12: Curl the Petals

Almost done! Just grab a toothpick (or use your fingers) and begin curling the petals. Curl it up from the edges to give it a more realistic look, and enjoy your beautiful rose boutonniere!