Getting Crafty - Part 2

Yesterday, I told you I was getting crafty but the results were taking a bit longer than anticipated. Well here are the results.

For the first project, I took branches from a fallen tree limb. I tied them together and them put them in a crystal bowl with some white rocks. I decorated with blue, white and silver ornaments to match my room colors.


Project number two was by far the messiest. I have micro glitter all over the house. I used a computer graphics program and printed large letters to spell out "Merry & Bright". I traced them on to card stock and them cut them out. I added glitter to the edges for some sparkle and placed them in my windows.


For my final project, I made paper balls out of decorative papers. Scroll down for the instructions.

To make the paper balls you need:

1. Decorative paper (about the thickness of card stock is good)
   
2. A circle cutter or scrapbook punch. (You can cut the circles by hand but it is tedious.)
3. cardboard (or sheet of paper)
   
4. Ruler
5. pencil
   
6. X-acto knife
7. glue stick
8. paper clips

First start by make (20) 3" circles from the decorative paper. (You can make them any size but I used a 3" punch.)

Out of the cardboard or sheet of paper cut an equilateral triangle (for a 3" circle it is 2.5" long on all sides. If you are using a different size you can use a computer graphics program to make the right size equilateral triangle or if your mathy you can figure it out on your own...I'm not mathy, I used the computer graphics program.). Trace the triangle onto the back of all the circles as shown below.

With the ruler and the X-acto knife. Lightly score the outline of the triangle. Then fold the edges up as shown below.

Glue two of the flaps of the circle together with the points facing in the same direction as shown below. Repeat this one more time. This is the beginning of the top and bottom of the ball.

Glue 3 more circles on each (same as above glue flaps together). Make sure all the points face the direction. It will look like below when finished.

Put the top and bottom aside to dry. With the remaining 10 circles, glue them together so the points are facing in opposite directions. It should look like the below if you laid it out flat.

When they have dried. Glue the two ends together forming a ring. Let it dry. When dry glue the top and bottom to the corresponding flaps on the ring. In the above picture that is the scallop shape flaps at top and bottom. I found it was helpful to secure with paperclips so they didn't slip apart while working. Let it dry and there you go your own paper ball. I think I'm going to make some more later with washi-style patterned paper.

So what do you think? These are more my style decorations than the ones I showed last Friday I helped my mom with.