Paper Garland Craft

Its a horrid wet rainy London day…..Abbi has decided to put some (more!) Christmas decorations in her room. She is not one for the “less is more” maxim, and this was an easy quick and satisfying craft.

Materials needed:

Silver embroidery thread
Coloured paper
Either double sided tape, OR a sewing machine

Tools Needed:

Scissors
Paper punch

I have a pad of paper from Paperchase that has a great selection of bright colours. It was perfect for the job, but obviously any paper would do – They look great with anything – newspaper, paint chips – even just white paper…..go mad!

Method:

First cut out about a gajjillion circles. (That should be a word btw). We used a 2.5cm cutter.There are then two options to string them together.

Option 1: Without a sewing Machine

If you don’t have a sewing machine, you can tape two discs together, and attach the string in between. Lay out a random pattern, and place a small strip of double sided tape on one side. Push the thread onto the tape, and sandwich another disc onto the tape.

Option 2: With a Sewing Machine

This option is much much faster (and uses half the discs required for the sticky tape method)

We had a little production line going to put the discs into random order. As one disc flows through the sewing machine, you can place another in almost immediately. This will leave a gap of around 1cm. Set your tension low so as not to tear the paper, and stitches of a few mm.

Within minutes, you can whiz the whole lot through.

An hour of punching and sewing produces around 10m of paper garland.

Its going in Abbis room, and looks fab against her stained glass window.

In other decorating news around PSGC towers….my attempts to have a tasteful christmas are being thwarted by Abbi….

She has kidnapped a portion of our tree for the Christmas cookies and candy canes.

I have to resist the temptation to be the “rearranging fairy” in the middle of the night! This minimalist tree is more my taste. Certainly not everyones (as my son keeps telling me).Abbis handmade cookies above were decorated at a local independent bakery where she did a class this week. (….i am way too controlling for that much icing and glitter). Breath breath breath!The other little girl is the owners daughter, as Abbi was the only girl booked on the course. Dee the owner/baker was incredibly patient with Abbi. She had a fab time.