Making Baubles

We made the baubles below using recycled Christmas cards and card sent to us by the excellent Ideas in Paper ; if you want top quality paper and card for your craft projects, that's the place to get it! And if you mention Things to Make and Do when you order, you'll get a 10% discount!

These are great festive decorations, made out of old Christmas cards, but they can also be made out of any coloured card to match your party theme.

You will need:

Old Christmas cards or coloured card of your choice (enough to cut out 20 circles)
Pencil
Scissors
Ruler
Bone folder/blunt knife or knitting needle etc (to score the card and help it fold easily)
Stapler and staples
Hole-punch
Eyelets (optional)
Ribbon, string or thread (for hanging)



What to do


1. Down load the template onto card and cut out (remember to cut out the notches too).

Download Bauble Template

2. Using the old Christmas cards or coloured card, place the card face up and draw around the template, cut out 20 circles, remembering to snip out the notches.




3. To help the card to fold, line up the notches with the ruler and run a bone folder/back of a knife etc down the card. After scoring the line, fold up the flap against the ruler. You will need to do this three times…it will make a triangle pattern and have three flaps. These are your segments.




4. Take two card segments and line up two flaps, staple these together with two staples. Keep stapling them together until they become an orb shape, this is how to do it:

a) Start by making a circle out of five segments (this is your 1st row)
b) Staple another segment onto the bottom of each of those in the 1st row (this makes the 2nd row)
c) Add another segment between each of the ones on the 2nd row (there should now only be five pieces left, and it should be curving into a ball shape)
d) Add the five remaining pieces one at a time, going round in a circle until they all meet up together, creating a bauble.













5. To hang your bauble, make a hole in one pair of flaps and tie some ribbon, string or thread through it. You can even add an eyelet for strength and decoration. This can be tricky however, as you need to do it over the edge of a table to enable you to get to a flap, so you may need an extra pair of hands.

Using the template as a guide, you can make a giant bauble out of paper plates if you’re brave enough…and have the room for it! Or you can shrink the template down and make smaller versions, but they can be fiddly.