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So I am working at my computer when I see this dude across the street wearing puffer coat and I am beyond excited. A “crisp” fall day here is mid eighties and I miss having seasons so much! Here it is basically hot, hotter and then it might dip to the fifties once or twice a year but no lower and that’s only once or twice, maybe! There’s no such thing as fall leaves or snow here but I really, really wish for it sometimes. So I’m at my computer when I see this dude in a coat and I am beyond stoked. I mean I knew a cold front was coming in but it looks like it was a day early and stronger than the weather let on last night.
I bolt out of my office chair and through my huge ass front door and when the warm air hits me I am instantly ticked. Any guesses at the temperature? It was 74. Really? A puffer coat? Come on moron! Puffer coats are ugly and only okay to wear when it’s actually cold outside. Meh. I’m likely to freeze my rear off come Christmas at my sisters so I suppose I’ll get my cold weather and then some. Who knows maybe it will encourage a me to be happy with my winter in the mid-eighties!
But even if it doesn’t feel like it’s time to start Christmas crafting around here, it most definitely IS time. Every year I leave it all until the last minute but not this year! Nope! I’m on it and today we’re going to make some super pretty Christmas ornaments out of paper. Why paper? First it’s cheap, already in my stash meaning this little project cost me exactly ZERO dollars and ZERO cents (and I’m on a mission to not get all crazy spend-y on holiday decor this year!). Now if you do have to buy the stuff for this you can buy colorful books of cardstock from Walmart for $5. A 3″ circle punch is going to cost you around $20, but if you use a coupon you can snag one for 40-50% off easy. Glue, baker’s twine, beads, pompoms and that sort of stuff can definitely come out of the craft stash. Are you ready to get this fabulously free Christmas ornament DIY on? Let’s do it!
For this project you will need:
- Cardstock
- 3″ paper punch
- Glue (I used Rubber Cement but would have preferred a glue stick)
- Wood beads (pompoms will work, too)
- Paint, brush, etc. (optional)
- Baker’s twine
Punch 3″ holes out of a rainbow variety of cardstock. Now I used what I had on hand and, apparently, I don’t have a normal green. I was so tempted to run out and buy a sheet but NO! I’m on a mission here to frugally craft my way up to Christmas! Oh so what if I was also too lazy to put on the bra required to leave the house. And maybe too lazy to leave the house in general… moving on.
I went through a million little circles trying to figure out the perfect way to get really awesome looking paper ornaments EVERY TIME and in that I found that 9 or 10 pieces of cardstock give you the best spread when the ornament is put together so you can actually see all of the colors. Many more and the pieces are so close together that the colors don’t hardly matter and any fewer and they look too plain and simple.
Fold each circle in half. You don’t need to double back and go the other direction, just one and done is perfect. If you prefer one side to the other (on most of mine one side is textured and the other smooth) fold so that the “ugly” side is on the outs and the “pretty” side is inside of each half-circle when folded.
Apply glue to one side of the circle…
…and working like you see above begin gluing your circles together.
Public service announcement – Do NOT glue all of your circles together like this and hope that it will fan into a circle when you undo it because that only works SOME of the time.
Before you finish up gluing those last 2 circles together run a loop of baker’s twine into the center of the paper orb leaving a tail of a good few inches.
Run a bead onto the end and push it firmly against the bottom of the paper ornament. Either tie a knot so that everything stays together, or if you have subpar knotting skills as I do, shove some hot glue in that business. Add another knot on the other end to keep the ornament from sliding off of the loop end if it tips over.
If you did it right you’ll have a ready made loop like the ornament on the left.
But if you forget to double the twine (as I did a time or 2) you can make a loop after, no sweat.
If you don’t have any wood beads you can just plain old knot the twine like crazy or use what you have in the stash, pom poms work well and buttons could be super cute, too.
Now a part of why I love these is how they kind of spin a little bit and the colors keep changing. See up there? Lots of green and yellow, but within a few seconds…
…it’s all about the purple, baby. Well, almost. That middle guy is lazy. Like me. He didn’t want to go to town either :)
Now if rainbow isn’t your gig you can do this in any color combination you’re rocking your winter decor in or just what you have on hand in your stash. At the end of the day, and believe me, I had a total moron moment trying to figure this out and tried LOADS of papers with patterns, without patterns, a combination of the 2 and all sorts and every paper ornament I made, even if wonky was still pretty :) And since I worked out the kinks you can literally make a good dozen of these in half an 20-30 minutes, easy!
