Homemade Christmas papercraft decorations
Every year I plan to make decorations and this year I have got round to it. Usually it’s nice to be able to persuade N to craft with me, but this year he wasn’t so keen. He’s liked to see the end results though.
Papercrafts are great for simple decorations (and more complex ones if you’re good at origami). Some are suitable for children to help with – old fashioned snowflakes cut from paper, or paper chains are the easiest to do. With the snowflakes you can layer them up to make them thicker and more stylish.
While I stuck with folding this time, there are some amazing origami baubles you can make. I want to try making little gift boxes and gift bags in future. But that takes more organising to get the right card or paper in.
If you want to check out more paperraft ideas you can find a load on my pinterest papercrafts board below.
3D Snowflakes
In the past I’ve shared how to make 3D snowflake – this always goes down well, and can be made in a range of sizes. This time I remade them in an iridescent blue paper. It got a bit fiddly as it was smaller. I couldn’t find my glue dots so used a glue gun which worked fine and is probably more secure. Just watch your fingers as you hold the paper together when joining them.
Sunray decorations
Choose Christmassy colours or neutral metallics to make these for Christmas decorations. But you could have a display of these in a variety of designs as a photo backdrop for a party. As easy as concertina folding, you just need to make sure you’ve a long enough piece of paper to the width.
As with most papercrafts, you can make these more unique, by cutting shapes out of the sides. And different shaping around the edges.
I didn’t have a long enough piece of paper, so glued 4 concertina folded papers together to make it long enough to open and fold around to join. The ratio should be about 5cm width to 45cm length of paper. I probably had a bit too many folds in mine but you can experiment with different sizes and shapes.
To make:
Paper 5cm x 45cm
Scissors
Thread
Needle
Ruler and pencil
Take your paper and make pencil marks at regular points along the length using the rule. I did 1cm. These will ensure your folds are even.
Start folding in a concertina shape until you reach the end.
At one end, when folded, shape the end – you can leave it plain if wanted.
At the other end, use the needle to push the thread through from one end to the other of the concertina.
Open the shaped end up and fold it round to meet the other end, using the thread to pull the centre in tight and tie in a knot.
You can either glue the paper fold ends together or I sewed them together with a simple straight stitch so I could use the thread to hang the decoration up. I also added some glue to the back of the centre to help hold it together but you don’t need this.
If you’re hanging against a wall, you don’t need double coloued paper, but if you want to hang from the ceiling, use double sided paper.
Magazine Christmas tree
Another simple papercraft for children to do (or adults). You just need an old magazine. I only had one of N’s old The Week Junior magazines which are quite slim, so a few more pages are better than too few. A soft spine is better than a stiff spine of a book.
It’s just a case of folding each page in turn in one direction, then opening up back on the spine to stand as a Christmas tree. These look great with fairy lights draped around, or you can add glitter on the edges by smearing glue on the edges then sprinkling glitter over.
Fold the first page in to the centre of the spine.
Fold the top of the page in a second time.
Fold up the overhanging paper, and slot it under the fold.
Repeat the folding on every page.
Then stand up and spread out the folded pages.
Paper baubles
I have to admit I was disappointed by these, but I’ve seen similar look really good in one jewel or metallic colour paper. Plus I think having a few more pieces included would make them fuller (the circular ones at least). Hopefully the 2 tone one helps show how it works.
To make:
Paper – ideally one colour double sided
Glue – glue sticks work fine
Scissors
Something round to cut round. Or create your own symmetrical shape template.
Cut out at least 12 of your shape from the paper.
Fold each shape in half. Then stick the right hand side of one folded paper, to the left hand fold of another. Keep sticking until you’ve used all the shapes.
Before you stick the last 2 sides to join the bauble in a sphere shape, feed a ribbon or piece of twine along the inside and stick that in too for hanging it up.
Do you make your own decorations at Christmas? If you try any of these do let me know.