Paper Crafts

I loved making the simple heart decoration that we did this time last year, this version has a few more strips – a few of each would look great hanging together.

You will need
6 strips of paper in three colors
1 short strip
2 split pins or you can use a stapler
Scissors

Lay the strips in two sets of three.

Take the shorter strip and fold it in half – the intention of this folded bit is to create a loop for hanging the decoration. Place it on top of one of the sets of three strips with cut edges together.

Lay the second set of strips on the other side of the folded strip – again with cut edges together so the folded strip is sandwiched between them. Using the sharp point of the scissors, make a small hole through all the layers of paper and secure with the split pin, or staple them together.

Lay the strips on their edge on a table and pull around the outer strips to form a heart. Repeat with the other layers making each layer slightly bigger than the last. Secure with the split pin or staple.

Cut the edges near the split pins to a point to neaten them.

Tie a piece of string or ribbon to the centre loop to hang.

This is a great wee bowl that is easy to make and requires no glue, but just don’t try and serve ice-cream in it (or soup).

What you need
1 printer size sheet of light card
1 extra strip of card
Scissors
Hole punch

Cut the piece of card into five strips lengthways. Cut the extra strip of card in to three even lengths. Discard one.

Using the hole punch, punch a hole in both ends of each of the strips of card.

Roll each around a thin stick like a skewer.

Push the rolled card through one hole of each of five strips. Repeat with the other short piece of card.

Twist the strips so they spread out and create the shape of the bowl.

A crafty friend told me about the fun she had with this as a child and shared with me how to do it …

“This trick gave me endless entertainment when I was a child. Nearly every child at my school had their ‘cut off’ finger in a match box and even though we were all knew how the trick worked, there was still something pleasingly revolting about looking in the match box. ”

What you will need
1 empty match box
Scissors
Cotton wool
Red food coloring

Slide the box out of the cover and cut away the sections as shown.

Lay a piece of cotton wool (you could use a folded tissue instead) in the bottom of the box.

Dribble some red food coloring onto the cotton wool about half way down the length of the box. Slide the box back into the cover.

To play the trick, put you index finger into the hole in the bottom and practice holding the box with your thumb and middle finger so it looks natural. Tell your friends that you cut your finger off and ask them if they want to see it. Slide the box open and there your finger will lay looking lifeless on a blood soaked bed of cotton wool!

These pretty flowers are great for decorating lots of different things. They are of course great attached to a drinking straw and made into a gorgeous bouquet but you can also pop them onto greeting cards, wrapped gifts or attach to a twig.

Gather up some pretty paper like the one we made using crepe paper as a dye, a button, a pipe cleaner cut in half and a glue stick.

Fold the sheet of paper into a concertina.

Fold the length of concertina’d paper and cut the ends off on an angle. Push a length of pipe-cleaner through two holes in the button.

Wrap the pipe cleaner around the center of the folded paper. Twist to secure.

Using the glue stick, join the sides together to make a circle. If you find that the concertina is flattening out too much, cut the length of paper shorter.

Use the excess pipe-cleaner to secure the flower on to what you want.

This was supposed to be a Christmas craft but I was a bit late getting it ready – then I thought that you may have some extra magazines from holiday reading that need to be used, well this is the craft for that!

Use a magazine with a bound spine rather than a flimsy stapled one.

Open the magazine to the first page. Take the top right hand corner and bring it to the centre and fold. This should be tucked as far into the spine as possible.

Tuck the folded edge into the center spine and make another fold.

Fold the triangle section up so the fold lines up with the bottom edge of the page.

Fold the rest of the pages in the same way.

Carefully fold the front and back covers to match the rest and then glue them together.

No need to go to the beach to make these sand castles, you just need a small amount of sand, some glue and a few cardboard tubes. The paper plate is also handy to build it on.

	Cut the tubes up into different lengths to create the sandcastle shape.
	Paint some glue onto the tubes and roll them in the sand. We also used some salt that we had colored with food coloring for the top of one of our tubes. I flag cut from an old cereal box completes the castle.