Elegant Holiday Ornaments– So Easy a 3-legged Dog Can Do It!

Read today’s blog to learn how to make this.

Why let paper and glue just sit around? It’s the holidays! Time for arts and crafts! Don’t rush out and buy fancy and elegant holiday ornaments when you can make them yourself! Consider it family time: One of you bakes cookies, the other cuts and glues paper, and I’ll eat everything you leave laying around.

The list of what you need is below. My guess is that you already have all the items you need to make these fantastic stars laying around the house…

Me, being Christmasish.

A glue gun (easier) or glue stick (tastier).

A sheet of paper. Heavier is better.

Scissors.

A pencil.

An hour, max.

Fold, cut, unfold.

The first thing you do is cut the sheet of paper into six squares. You can use two pieces for bigger squares. I use two pieces of cardstock, and I get eight 4″x4″ squares out of them.

Fold the squares into triangles, and cut them the way you see in the picture to the right. I made four cuts on each side of the triangle. Just don’t cut out the notches completely.

You do NOT have to be precise. As long as you have an even number of cuts on both sides, you’re fine. This is kid-friendly! You can stack three or so squares and cut through several layers at once. When you unfold the triangles, you have a series of cuts like you see in the picture above.

Next, we’re going to work on one square at a time, so you will repeat these steps six times:

Curl and glue. Flip over. Curl and glue. Repeat.

Take a pencil or something and curl it around the inner square. Glue it in place and remove the pencil. Try not to glue the pencil to the paper, as you will probably glue the pencil to the paper. You will probably also burn yourself a little bit. No pain, no ornament.

Flip the ornament over, grab the next two flaps and curl them the opposite way from the first curl– then glue into place. See precautions above. Flip it over, grab the next two flaps, curl, and glue. Repeat 2x.

See how there is a big side and a little side?

Now, you should have something that looks like the picture to the right. Make six of these.

Notice that there is a big side and a little side. The bigger side has three loops, and the little side has two loops. In this picture, the bigger side is on the left.

After you make six of these, arrange them on the table in a line and make sure they are all headed in the same direction, like in the picture below. The easiest way to join them is to glue them all in this chain with some glue inbetween each of the pieces. Be liberal with it.

You can then choose whatever way works the best for you to connect the two ends. I think it is easiest to stand the chain up on its end and make it into a ring, and then glue the ring together. Then, you just push down in the middle, and dribble glue into the center to hold it. Or, just arrange them like in the picture below and dot them together.

So easy a three-legged dog can do it!

Note: When you have finished your star, you can spray it with some adhesive and dust it with glitter. In that case, you will also need spray adhesive and glitter. I recommend getting a box as well– spray the ornament, then put it in the box, then dust it with glitter, close the box, and shake your little tail off.