December 22

Posted on December 22, 2017 by Emily Poirier

“Seeing is believing, but sometimes the most real things in the world are the things we can’t see” – Conductor, The Polar Express

Start with a small rectangular scrap.

Cut pieces from the corners to scoop out the edges.

Write or print on another piece of paper so you can trace with a hole poker.

Start poking. I used a very large safety pin on top of a mouse pad.

Using a smaller pin or needle, poke around the edges as a border.

Clean up the larger holes if needed by re poking and flattening the hole flaps in the back.

Add your ribbon and hang! Make tickets for each word if you’d like. And always, always believe.

December 15

Posted on December 15, 2017 by Emily Poirier

Cut a sheet of paper into strips. These are 3/4″ strips.

Stack the strips and fold in half. Glue or staple the fold in place. If gluing, use a small amount just in the center.

Add a dab of glue to the end of each strip and loop to the center. Hot glue, glue stick or double sided tape will work best.

Loop and glue until all strips are looped and glued.

So easy! Try with shorter strips, thinner strips, colors and ribbons. Perfect for the tree or on top of a gift!

December 13

Posted on December 13, 2017 by Emily Poirier

I thought I’d switch it up a bit with a video! This is creating a large flower but for the ornament, I quartered the square an 8.5×11 creates. Click the image below to see the tutorial!

December 8

Posted on December 8, 2017 by Emily Poirier

Another craft for those left over strips!

Thick strips work best. It’s ok if the edges aren’t perfect.

Start rolling the strips leaving a little hole in the center. About halfway down a pencil tip. You’ll need to be able to fit one side of scissors in there.

Tape your roll closer to one end.

Insert one side of the scissors in the center and start making cuts down the roll. About 3/4 of the way down the roll.

This was a rather thick one so I started with 4 cuts. You can make more as you start floofing out the pieces.

Start curling from the bottom using your nail, rolling on a pen or with the side of scissors. Keep taking a piece or two at a time and curling and flaring out.

Cut larger pieces to flare out easier and to fluff it up some more.

And that’s all!

Your pom pom is ready for the tree.

December 7

Posted on December 7, 2017 by Emily Poirier

Happy one week of ornaments! Today is one of my favorites and so easy. The cutting is the only tedious part so put on a movie if you are making a bunch! You can Google or YouTube how to make these and for free templates. I’m sure missing my printer right now, I had to trace off of my laptop – it’s a touch screen so tracing was… touchy. Ha.

This is the template I found on Google and Pinterest. I wasn’t able to find the original and the logo is a little fuzzy. Let me know if you know the original author!

It helps to print your template on cardstock then use that to trace onto paper.

Cut out.

Fold centers. The smallest ones you can just push an edge or your nail in the center.

Put a dab of glue in the center of the largest one and place the 2nd largest on top so it’s fanned between petals.

Keep gluing and placing leaves on from largest to smallest and rotating so it’s fanned out. You can curl the tips a little down if you want to fluff it up a little more as well.

And there you have it! Make 1 or 100! Last year, I made a wreath for my office with logo paper I made.

December 6

Posted on December 6, 2017 by Emily Poirier

The easiest version of this craft, a simple non-windowed house.

Google image search “paper house luminaries” and find tons of free templates and ideas. Print on plain or patterned paper, cut out windows if you’d like, fold, glue, then add to your tree. Our printer isn’t set up in the apartment, so I sketched up a similar draft of one of the free templates I found then traced with a ruler. Paper trees go from basic to very elaborate. I could probably fill a whole tree of different houses if I had my Exacto blades and a printer for some different templates!

Here are my drafts. Keep on tweaking if you are free handing this project!

If you are printing the template on decorative paper, print on the blank side. If the pattern is on both sides, fold so the template is inward. Also, practice a few houses on regular printer paper before trying on fancy stuff.

Here is the result. I tried to dot fold lines and make cut lines solid… but messed up in a few places.

Pinterest has a ton of paper houses and paper luminaries. Have fun!

December 5

Posted on December 5, 2017 by Emily Poirier

From diamonds to snowflakes, these are simple, dimensional and elegant. Try in a variety of sizes for both separate diamonds and to make a full snowflake.

Fold an 8.5×11 sheet of paper to create a square.

Cut off extra bit.

Fold the square into quarters. (lines only drawn for reference)

Cut along fold lines into smaller squares.

Fold each square in half to make a triangle. You will cut from the folded side of the paper towards the center careful not to cut all the way to the center. Cut along dotted lines and keep solid line intact.

Once open, it should look like this,

Fold the center towards you and glue together.

Flip over.

Take the next row and glue those together.

Flip over. Glue the last two pieces together. That’s it for just a 3D Diamond! Continue reading to learn how to make into a snowflake.

Make 5 more diamonds to have a total of 6 diamonds. First, glue two diamonds together at the bottom.

Glue one more diamond onto the two. Repeat to make another set of 3.

Put a bit of glue on the center and pinch together.

Your snowflake is now complete! These look great in different colors and sizes. Let it snow!

December 4

Posted on December 4, 2017 by Emily Poirier

By now, you’ve made a couple of ornaments and may have some scrap paper. You’ve made these probably with straw wrappers, while in class, while you’re on a conference call… anyway, they are a super simple folded piece of ART. They are the original fidget toy. Bask in the glory of simplicity and not wasting a scrap of paper. If you haven’t made one of these, the steps are simple and below:

Strips of scrap. Any size and width will do and it’s okay if they are a little beat up. It adds character.

It helps to add a touch of glue to the starting corner.

Start folding the pieces evenly on top of each other.

folding….

folding…

And fold until you can’t fold anymore. Trim off any excess and glue the top bits in place.

So simple, so satisfying. And it eats up any scraps you may have! It’s like amped up tinsel! Try in different widths, lengths and with more than two pieces!

December 3

Posted on December 3, 2017 by Emily Poirier

Take any shape and turn them into these ornaments. I’ve included a template with a few basic shapes so you can print out and trace as well!

For a circle, I just used the ribbon spool I had.

I tried to be crafty with this one so I put a little ornament topper on there. Make your first shape and use as a template if you are creating your own shape like this.