Four Belles convened at Diane I's yesterday for a convivial afternoon of paper decoration making, chat, wine (or coffee!) and lebkuchen. Sheila joined us for the afternoon and Angela was there in spirit with the donation of her bead box for the Crew to ransack for decorative treasures.
Diane found us a relatively simple, but effective make on on YouTube. Gill and Sheila upcycled some magazine pages in Christmassy colours; Diane had some black paper; and Michelle used origami paper. We all agreed the ones made from magazine paper looked just as effective as those made from our craft stashes.
Before you watch the video you will need:
Thin card for template making
A compass or an object with a circle approximately 4cm in diameter to draw around
Paper (relatively thin works best) - enough to cut 20 x 5cm squares, plus one or two thin strips for the central band if using
Pencil
Ruler
Scissors
Craft mat (or cardboard)
PVA glue - Diane had decanted some into the pictured teeny tiny bottles
Clips or pegs (to hold the paper stack for drying)
Metallic pens (optional for decoration - Diane's use of gold pen on hers was very effective)
2 small beads per decoration (optional but classy)
Thread for hanging - we used strong button thread; gold or silver would add an extra Christmassy touch
The crew's top tips:
Make sure the template is in the right place, so the paper opens out into a complete circle when cut out (obvious but Michelle managed to get one of hers wrong, much to everyone's amusement!)
Make sure each paper is glued down before assembling the paper stack (Michelle forgot and accidentally found an alternative version of the make!)
Use the craft mat guidance lines or marked cardboard to get the glue in the same place on each paper when gluing them together
Take care to ensure the papers are aligned when gluing
Be generous with the glue but not too much so it splays out when aligning the papers (we found they did slip - so be quick to get them lined up again)
Give plenty of time for the glued paper stack to dry before opening it out - time for coffee and a lebkuchen!
You will probably need to clean off the odd bit of dried glue to fully open out the decoration - easily done when PVA glue is used
We found the band round the middle was optional, though it added a designer touch to Diane's plain black decoration
Use a small tray e.g. an empty mince pie case to hold the glue, plus a cocktail stick for application if you don't have a teeny tiny applicator bottle
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