Paper Crafts

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!

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.

Have I got time to sneak one more craft in before Christmas? I think so – let’s try this one!

This is a lovely wee tree that uses crepe paper twist chains to decorate it.

What you will need
1 US letter or A4 sheet of card
Crepe paper in the colour of your choice
Glue stick
Scissors
Pencil

Trace around a dinner plate and fold to make a half circle. Cut out with the scissors and fold over to create a cone shape. Glue to secure.

Cut a strip from the end of the folded crepe paper.

Unroll and using your thumb and forefinger, twist twice to secure. Repeat along the length of crepe paper using your thumb as a guide to get a uniform size.

Cover the cone shape with glue from the glue stick and then attach the crepe paper chain starting at the top of the tree and spiralling down. Repeat with the other colours of crepe paper.

This tree looks good as it is but you could add some glitter shapes, pompoms or whatever you fancy.

I love the crazy antlers on this reindeer

What you will need:
1x Empty toilet roll
Brown, black and white paint
Paint brush
1 x small glitter pom pom
2 x googly eyes
2 x black pipe-cleaners
Black marker
Scissors
Glue

What to do
Paint the outside of the toilet roll with the brown paint. Leave to dry.

Cut legs into the bottom of the toilet roll.

Paint on the hooves using the black paint. Leave to dry

Paint a white strip above the black hooves and leave to dry.

Using the point of the scissors, make a hole either side of the top of the toilet roll for the antlers. Make sure you take into account the position of the legs when making the holes.

Cut both pipe-cleaners in half. Thread one through each hole twisting it back on itself to secure.

Take the other half and wrap it around the middle of one of the antlers to secure in place. Bend the pipe-cleaners to make them look like crazy antlers.

Stick on the nose and then eyes. Draw on the mouth using the black marker.

Around this time of year we usually have a bit of a party and I try to have a few activities set up that are easy and fun for any children that turn up. I have not tried this one before so I do not yet know how it will turn out. But the plan is that those that feel so inclined will decorate this very bare tree with lots of decorations and presents underneath it.

This tree is painted on a large bit of hardboard we had in the shed, I have taped the edges to prevent splinters!

The dog under the tree is not a gift, she is to demonstrate how large the tree is. So there is plenty of room for lots of children to use the boxes of felts I will have handy, to cover this tree with decorations.

Well of course things did not go completely as planned – but not in a bad way! The weather was lovely, and the children were all far too busy to sit down and draw, so we only had a couple of ornaments drawn on the tree – but they are still very cool. This may turn into an annual tree decoration activity – where a few ornaments are drawn on each year. Which would be a lovely crafty addition to our family Christmas traditions.