Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Nutcracker paper garlands
My little boy has always loved nutcrackers. For Christmas just after he had turned 2, it was all the wanted. Anytime anyone asked him what he wanted for Christmas he always answered, a nutcracker.
This year he is now four, and just beginning to get into craft in a big way. I drew some nutcrackers for him on the computer. We cut them out, and pieced them together in the same way as the paper angels, using tiny paper fasteners. And then glued bits of cotton wool on as their beards.
He just loves them.
And you can download the templates so you can print and make your own garlands below!
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Christmas Fairy Garland Tutorial
A long time ago, I made some paper fairies for my niece's birthday. She is old enough now to make them all on her own. So I thought I'd put together a little Christmas Fairy craft kit to send over to her and her sister in England, with a more Christmas feel to them, with their glittery organza skirts.
And you can click on the link below and follow the tutorial if you would like to make them too.
Things you'll need:
Card stock and printer
Scissors
Sharp tool such as a large needle
Paints/crayons/pens
Scraps of fabric
Scraps of pretty paper for the wings
Mini paper fasteners
Japanese MT tape (or other decorative tape)
Glue stick
First of all, you'll need to print off the template onto card stock. You can download the template here.
Once you've printed it, you can begin to paint the fairies. I used watercolours, pencil crayons and even some Japanese MT tape. You can use whatever you have.
And you don't need to worry about going outside the lines.....it's all going to be cut out later.
Once the fairies are all decorated, using a sharp tool (such as a large needle) poke holes in the paper, where the grey dots are, on each arm, leg, hip, shoulder and hand. Do this before cutting them out, it's quite tricky to do later.
Cut each fairy out carefully, try to cut a little inside the lines, so you can't see them once cut out.
You are now ready to assemble them, using a mini paper fastener to join arms and legs to the body.
The next step is to add their skirts. I gave mine double layered skirts. For the underneath I cut out tiny scraps of fabric about 3 cm by 5 cm. I gently gathered the fabric in my fingers and attached it to the fairy using some Japanese MT tape that I had cut in half horizontally ( to make it quite narrow)
On top of that I cut out some glittery Christmasy organza fabric, about 8cm x 5 cm. Again, I gently gathered the fabric with my fingers and attached it using another layer of tape.
Then I cut out the wings from some pretty metallic paper and glued them on to the back of the fairies using a glue stick.
Join the hands together with more paper fasteners, and your garland is now ready to hang!
( I only made 3 for the purposes of this tutorial, but a garland of 6 or more looks best)
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