AIM DIY: Photo Album Pop-up Ornaments

December 17, 2015October 28, 2020 | Alison - Adventures-in-Making

From 2014-2016 I chronicled my crafty endeavors on the site Adventures-in-Making. I’ve selected a few of those DIY’s, Recipes, and other posts to share on the site.

Okay. I’ll admit it. I have possibly been making too many ornaments.

The floor is covered in little bits of paper, the ribbons are everywhere, and cat is oh so happy. (Happy and thus in the background of many of my photos.) I can’t help it. I’ve given myself over to the ornament bug, and even though I’ve told myself that these are ‘just this year’s ornaments’, I’m not sure I’ll have the self control to throw them all away.

I need a crafter help line… or maybe I can just spread the decoration disease and have you all join me in the madness. (*evil laughter*)

My sister recently handed over a large bag of family photos, and after the proper period of mortification I decided that I needed to do something with them. The best part about being in charge of photo projects is that you can include only adorable pictures of yourself, and edit out the slightly more awkward times.

I pulled together a selection of photos of family that yelled “HAPPY HOLIDAYS, Y’ALL!” Scanned and shrank them, then pulled out a few basic tools to turn the faces I love into ornaments I’ll cherish.

SUPPLIES

Resized photos printed on medium-heavy weight paper
Extra colored paper or cardstock
Medium to large hole punches– any symmetrical shape will work, I used circles and ovals
Ribbon or string
Buttons, bells, or beads
Paper glue or adhesive

To begin I punched my favorite people out of my favorite photos, and the same number of circles out of cardstock. Then I chose between 4 and 6 of my favorites, the same number of solid circles, and folded each in half– top to bottom.

I chose a button than matched my cardstock, then cut about 16 inches of string and fed it through the button.

I used my Scotch ATG gun to apply adhesive to each folded piece (glue works too).

I attached each piece to the one before it in a stack, alternating photos and cardstock. (Make sure that you don’t accidentally glue your sister in upside-down. She wouldn’t like that. All photos should point the same way.)

I laid the string and button across the spine of my stack (button on the bottom), added a little adhesive to one of the folded pieces, and attached the top and bottom piece to form a ball shape.

Then I fed another button on above the ball, tied a knot, and fluffed open all the pages.

I love how simple they look from far away, but each page is a memory of the holidays and of my family.

I did a few variations, using different punches, and combining shapes on one ribbon; but they are all put together the same way which means I could spend more time remembering good times than obsessing over the process.

It also means it’s a great project for kids, who might get a thrill out of punching holes out of photos.

and keeping them forever.

AIM DIY: Playing Card Ornaments

December 10, 2015November 7, 2020 | Alison - Adventures-in-Making

From 2014-2016 I chronicled my crafty endeavors on the site Adventures-in-Making. I’ve selected a few of those DIY’s, Recipes, and other posts to share on the site.

An old deck of cards in one hand, and the perfect Christmas Tree outside… something weird’s gonna happen.

We love games at this house. Card games, board games… you name it. I love to buy my children card games for Christmas or on their birthday as we love being able to play games with each other as a family. There are so many different card games out there that 8 year olds love to play with and so I try and find ones that are suitable for their age. We enjoy playing with them that much that I’m replacing them more regularly than I’d like to be. I don’t love worn-out cards, though, so I’ve been looking for a clever way of getting rid of a couple of our older decks. After playing with strips of paper as Christmas ornaments, I started thinking about ways to turn flat cards into 3-d shapes. Internet searches gave me a few options, including this great tutorial for making ornaments out of MTG playing cards. After following the tutorial, I made a couple of tweaks and ended up with another great collection of ornaments for our outdoor holiday tree.

Supplies

A deck of cards
Thin-ish wire: I used 22 Gauge floral wire
Assorted beads or buttons: Make sure the wire will fit through the holes.
Wire clippers and pliers
Craft knife or paper cutter
Awl or large needle for piercing cards
Ribbon or string

To begin you will cut several playing cards into 1/2″ strips. Choose 16 of those pieces to turn into your first ornament.

Poke a hole, at the bottom and top of each piece, approximately 1/4″ from the end. (You should be able to pierce through multiple cards at once.)

Trim a length of wire, approximately 10″ long, and put a small loop in one end. String at least one bead as a stopper, then start feeding your card pieces on, one at a time. This will be the bottom of your ornament, and the side showing from the bottom (shown above) will be the side of the card facing out on your ornament.

IMG_3527_playingcardornaments — The red side will be hidden on the inside of this ornament.

Once you have all your card pieces fed on the wire, add about 1-1/2″ of beads as spacers.

Starting with the bottom piece of card, gently feed the wire through the pierced hole at the other end.

Do the same with the next lowest piece of card, letting it rest against one side. Repeat with the next lowest piece of card EXCEPT let it rest on the other side of the center.

Repeat this action on each piece, going back and forth between each side of the ornament. It should begin to form a sphere.

There should be just enough space to feed the last (most interior) piece through. If you feel like the pieces are too cramped, you may want to gently tear a piece or two off your wire.

When you have all the pieces wrapped back around, add another bead or two, make a loop in the wire, and trim. Feed a ribbon through the loop, and you have a nifty ornament!

Other things to try

Make the spacer inside the ornament longer for a more spherical ornament, or make it shorter for a more compressed “space saucer” ornament. The different shapes will need a slightly different number of card pieces, but I’ve found that they all use between 14 and 16 pieces.
String two ornaments on the same wire for a more complex shape.
Mix and match back pieces and front pieces for a striped pattern.
String an extra piece of beaded wire or string to the bottom of the ornament for even more decoration.
Go crazy with bead spacers and see what happens.

What do you think? Trash to treasure?

AIM DIY: Scrap Paper Strip Ornaments

December 3, 2015October 28, 2020 | Alison - Adventures-in-Making

From 2014-2016 I chronicled my crafty endeavors on the site Adventures-in-Making. I’ve selected a few of those DIY’s, Recipes, and other posts to share on the site.

***

Up until the last couple of years, Safety Husband and I would go home to Texas for the holidays, and we never felt the need to decorate for the season. For the last couple of years we’ve talked about decorating the “Christmas Tree” that just happens to be growing in our upper yard, and this year we’re making it happen. I’ve been putting my brain power into making ornaments that are either weatherproof, or are meant to be thrown away in January. It’s been a great chance to work through some of the materials I’ve been… ahem… collecting.

I love vintage ornaments and paper, and after a couple of years of experimentation I was ready to combine those two loves in this one ornament design. Super quick, because they are held together by staples, a couple of basic techniques can build a whole tree’s worth of decoration.

Supplies

Stapler
Ribbon (3/8″ to 1/2″ wide is great)
Scrap Paper: I used leftover 12×12 scrapbooking paper, but catalog or magazine pages would work well too! If you’re using thin paper, you might want to double up on the number of strips per ornament.
Clips: binder clips work great for this, but a clothespin will work in a pinch. (Pun intended.)
Scissors

To begin, cut about eight 1/2″ strips off your paper. (You can vary the number, just make sure you have an even number of strips.)

Cut a length of ribbon about twice the length of your paper strips.

Fold the ribbon in half, and stack half the strips on each side. Staple near the bottom of the stack, away from the loop of ribbon.

The staple will go through all the paper and the ribbon, securing that point. (Staples must be cheating, because they make this too easy.)

Put a clip about halfway down the paper, clamping the whole stack of paper and ribbon. With one hand, hold the clip, and with the other gently pull on the loop of the ribbon.

This should cause the paper to pooch out a little on the other side of the clip. Repeat the holding and pulling step, but this time grab the ribbon loop and the two strips of paper closest to it on either side.

Repeat again and again, adding another strip on either side, until you reach the outer strip.

Then carefully put a staple through the area the clip was holding.

Trim any excess paper with a pair of scissors.

If you want, you can curl some of the extra paper to add a little decorative detail. Simply roll the paper around a small pencil or paintbrush to curl it.

Once you get the hang of the whole pull method, you can shake things up by doing a similar technique, upside-down.

Staple in the middle of your ornament, and turn each strip back down. Once you’ve turned each strip, staple them at the bottom to form a heart shape.

Using these two techniques you can make a whole range of funky vintage ornaments.

If you get sick of looking at the staples, you can replace them with a couple of stitches. Simply poke a hole in the middle of the stack, and make stitches back and forth to secure the ornament.

Remove the staple, and you’ll never know it was there.

Or spend that time making a whole army or ornaments. It’s up to you!

One set down, more to go.

AIM DIY: Simple Trees for Your Chipboard Forest

December 2, 2015October 28, 2020 | Alison - Adventures-in-Making

From 2014-2016 I chronicled my crafty endeavors on the site Adventures-in-Making. I’ve selected a few of those DIY’s, Recipes, and other posts to share on the site.

Even before I was done building little chipboard houses I knew they would need a little setting to live in. I wanted to come up with a simple and flexible tree template that I could make a whole forest out of. Inspired by my old paper bird project, I used strips of chipboard to build these trees.

Supplies

Scrap chipboard: from the backs of notepads or boxes. My pieces were 8.5×11″
You favorite paper glue
Clothespins or clips
Craft knife
Scoring Tool: a bone folder or dull knife work great

I began by making two score lines along the long side of the board, at .5″ and at 2.5″.

Then I cut two pieces, 1″ wide, off the other side for the trunk of my tree. The remaining piece of chipboard had my score marks on it, and I trimmed it into 1″ pieces (each piece has the same score marks).

I applied glue to the trunk pieces, and clipped them together to dry.

While the trunk glue was drying, I folded each of my small pieces along the score marks, forming an L.

Piece by piece, I applied glue to the .5″ flap and the top of the L…

then clipped them to the trunk. In this picture you can see that I folded the two pieces of the trunk away from each other at the base; this will allow the trees to sit by themselves.

I continued to add tree pieces until I liked what I saw (typically between 2 and 4 tiers), holding each piece with a couple of clips.

When I was happy, let the glue sit overnight, held by the clips. (Happy little trees, as the man said.)

On some I trimmed the top a bit, some I left tall. I love the way the variety turned out. These would be great with snowy glitter added, or paint. I’m just happy to have a forest for my little chipboard houses.

Trees for the little paper world.

Yes, I know I sound crazy. Now go make something!

(;

AIM DIY: Paper Spiderwebs to Decorate Everything

October 16, 2015October 28, 2020 | Alison - Adventures-in-Making

From 2014-2016 I chronicled my crafty endeavors on the site Adventures-in-Making. I’ve selected a few of those DIY’s, Recipes, and other posts to share on the site.

Step by step this house is getting properly October spooky. I’m a big fan of decorating with the things I have around, and this collection of tarnished silver and moody ornaments needed one little touch, so I decided to make a spiderweb table runner out of scrap paper and a piece of ribbon.

SUPPLIES

A few sheets of paper, any color you fancy. I used card stock, which was a bit trickier to cut but more durable in the long run.
Small clips or tape
Your favorite craft knife
A hole punch
Ribbon
The spiderweb template

Once you have printed the spiderweb template, use tape or the clips to secure it to a sheet or two of paper, and cut the spiderweb shape out with a craft knife. You will also punch holes where each X is.

Cutting Tips

Start trimming the small center pieces out first and move to the large pieces. I actually cut all the inner pieces, then moved on the the next sheet of paper until I have enough pieces. Then I cut the outer shape out of several pieces at once using scissors.

When you’ve cut out and punched all your pieces, weave a piece of ribbon in and out of the holes to connect several spiderwebs.

I overlapped the corners of each spiderweb piece to make my table runner…

and hung them all on one ribbon for a creepy spiderweb banner.

The possibilities are, as they say, endless! I’m even thinking of creepy spiders to add to them.

The motionless, paper kind.

What’re you decorating with?

AIM DIY: Shiny Robot Ornaments from Wine Corks

December 10, 2014October 28, 2020 | Alison - Adventures-in-Making

From 2014-2016 I chronicled my crafty endeavors on the site Adventures-in-Making. I’ve selected a few of those DIY’s, Recipes, and other posts to share on the site.

Since this month’s DIY Craft Challenge Theme is Glitter I started thinking about all the things that sparkle around the holidays… and obviously thought “Robot”.

Actually, I’m not sure why I went straight to our metal friends, but that’s what the DIY Craft Challenge is all about! It’s a jumping off point for all your great ideas. I think glitter, I think robots. It’s just fine!

I’ve been playing with projects that use wine corks, and decided with a little paint, wire, and decoration I could make some amazing little guys for my tree.

Supplies I used

• Wine Bottle Corks
• A large kitchen knife and cutting board
• Folk Art Metallic Acrylic Paint – in Gunmetal and Silver Sterling and paintbrush
• E6000® Craft Adhesive
• A nail and hammer and a scrap piece of wood (you could also use an awl)
• 18 Gauge Steel Galvanized Wire, needle nose pliers, and wire cutters
• Stud Earrings, buttons, and other decoration bits.

I used a few basic shapes to form my robots. Wheels were just thin slices off the corks. Bodies and heads were mainly full or shortened corks. Legs were cut long wise either in half or in quarters. I used a very sharp knife to cut several different shapes out and held those shapes together to see what looked “roboty” to me.

Once I decided on the shape of my robot, I painted each piece with the gunmetal color of acrylic. If you’re having trouble getting the paint to stick to the outside of the cork, rough it up a little with sandpaper.

After several (sloppy) coats of paint, I began drilling holes in my corks to run wire through. I love that using wire instead of glue means that the wheels, heads, and arms can all be spun or moved.

For the wheely robots, I ran the through the center body piece, and through each wheel.

Then secured the ends of the wire by making a loop with the wire, then folding the loops down against the wheel.

When I had a wire that I couldn’t run all the way through a piece, I applied a dab of E6000 adhesive to the end before pressing it into the cork.

I have a huge stash of old earrings that were donated to me, and some of them were absolutely perfect for decorating the robots. It’s okay that they are a little mismatched; their hearts are in the right place. (Get it?!)

I had a great time making these little guys… and playing with them. I absolutely love taking the opportunity to look at everything in a new way.

Breaking down robots into a few basic shapes, then building them from an unexpected material.

While you’re brainstorming for the DIY Challenge, I encourage you to take the chance to try something a little different. Take the theme and run with it.

If you ever make robots like these, be careful.

They can get rowdy and make a royal mess out of your other decorations… especially if they have help.

What does your brain go when you think Glitter?

So, There.

So There Letterpress and Stationery Studio in Issaquah

holiday

AIM DIY: Photo Album Pop-up Ornaments

SUPPLIES

AIM DIY: Playing Card Ornaments

Supplies

Other things to try

AIM DIY: Scrap Paper Strip Ornaments

Supplies

AIM DIY: Simple Trees for Your Chipboard Forest

Supplies

AIM DIY: Paper Spiderwebs to Decorate Everything

SUPPLIES

Cutting Tips

AIM DIY: Shiny Robot Ornaments from Wine Corks

Supplies I used