Not So Scrappy Paper Ornaments

Taking down the Christmas decorations can be kind of a disappointment.   To keep my little ones and myself out of a January winter funk, we leave a few winter themed decorations up including these paper ornaments we made to replace the Christmas glass ball ornaments that had adorned our dining room. 

Materials:
Cardstock Scraps(colored or with a printed pattern) at least 6” long
paper cutter or scissors
ruler
stapler
hole punch
head pins
jump rings
jewelry making pliers
decorative beads
ribbon for hanging

Procedure:

1.       Cut your cardstock into strips measuring the following dimensions:
(2) 6” x 1”, (2) 5”x1”, (1) 4”x1” If your cardstock is blank on the back side you can double the strips so you have color or printed pattern on both sides.

2.       Line up the ends of your strips and punch a hole in the middle of the short side and about a quarter of an inch from the end.  Line up the strips to the other side and punch a hole in the same way.

3.       Stack your strips lining up the short ends starting with one of the largest strips, then a medium strip then the smallest, then the other medium strip and finish with the other large strip on top.  If you have strips with different patterns on their opposite sides consider how you want them oriented.  My paper had different patterns on the front and back so I configured them up so that the patterns mirrored the center strip.

4.       Secure the ends with a staple.

5.       Gently slide the opposite end of the paper strips so the ends line up and they bend into a nice curve.  Secure with a staple. 

6.       Slide some beads onto a head pin and bend a circle in the end of the head pin using round nose pliers to hang it from a jump ring. 

7.       Thread the jump ring through the bottom hole and hang a bead from the bottom.  (The same can be done for the top of the ornament or you can skip the bead and just thread ribbon for hanging.)

8.       Thread ribbon through the top hole for hanging.

Handmade Paper Curls

My son loves to swipe any scraps of paper I have leftover (especially long strips trimmed on the paper cutter).  His favorite thing to do with them is wrap them around a pencil to make what he calls a “paper curl”.  He even wanted to open his own Etsy shop like mine called “Handmade Paper Curls”.  I decided that he would love to learn how to put these curls together in an art-form called “paper quilling” or “paper filigree”. 

I didn’t have an actual paper quilling tool so I cut a piece of 4“ length of 1/8“wooden dowel.  Using a fine saw for cutting balsa wood I carefully cut a ¼ inch deep slit in one end of the dowel.  The end of the strip of paper easily slid into the dowel slot and then he spun the dowel to coil the paper around itself.  Once it is tightly curled let it loosen up and slide it off the dowel.  We used red and green copy paper cut into quarter inch strips and then pinched the opposite sides to make a leaf shape that we glued together to make a poinsettia ornament.  I added some gold beads and it made a great decoration on the top of a Christmas gift!