For The Art & Craft Enthusiasts
By: Annabelle Maria Jeffrey, Lakshmi Ganesan & Samantha Pereira
Looking to exercise your creativity with some arts & crafts? Now’s the best time to get hands on, with the holidays around the corner. To get you started, we’ve collected a list of 10 easy projects you can try out for this Christmas. We’ve also rated their levels of difficulty, (since we’ve tried making all of these too) so if you’re one of those clumsy crafters, it’s best to pick the ones that are level 3 and below.
REINDEER PUZZLE ORNAMENT (Level 1)
MATERIALS:
4 puzzle pieces
2 googly eyes
Thin red ribbon
Small red ornament ball
UHU glue/superglue (any other strong glue)
Brown paint
DIRECTIONS:
1. Arrange the puzzle pieces in the formation shown in the picture above.
2. Glue them together with the gun.
3. Spray brown paint on it.
4. After it has dried, glue the googly eyes onto the bottom most puzzle piece (refer to picture for direction)
5. Glue the nose (small red ornament ball)to the tip of the bottom most puzzle piece.
6. Cut desired amount of red ribbon, and glue the ends to the back of the head of the reindeer.
CHRISTMAS WREATH (Level 2)
MATERIALS:
12 empty toilet rolls
UHU glue/superglue (any other strong glue)
Green paint
Scissors
Paper clips (for fastening)
1 toothpick
DIRECTIONS:
1. Paint all the toilet rolls green.
2. Once dried, cut up each toilet roll into 4 cylinders. Ensure that they are approximately of the same size.
3. Paint the insides of the toilet rolls green as well.
4. Once dried, arrange the 4 cut-up pieces in a flower formation (like the picture above).
5. Add glue to the tips of the pieces. Glue the pieces together at the center in a flower shape. If required, add laundry clips to hold these pieces together, without falling apart while the glue dries. You should be able to create 9 flowers.
6. Lay out the already glued flowers in a circle formation.
7. Glue one petal of each flower to the petal of the neighbouring flower in the circle formation. Attach paper clips on the places you’ve applied glue to, in order to hold the flowers in place.
PAPER CHRISTMAS TREE (Level 4)
1 piece of 2-3cm thick cardboard
Craft scissors
Normal scissors
UHU glue/superglue (any other strong glue)
1 Button
Unwanted books of different sizes
1 chopstick
Glitter glue
DIRECTIONS:
1. Cut a square cardboard base, 15x15cm.
2. Glue the chopstick on the base of the cardboard.
3. Cut book pages, using craft scissors the size of 15x15cm to cover-up the base of the cardboard. Use a pencil to make a hole in the middle of each paper slice, then poke it through the chopstick and glue it to the cardboard.
4. Cut several more book pages using the craft scissors using the various sizes like, 13x13cm, 11x11cm, 9x9cm, etc. Keep reducing it by 2cm till you have a variety of sizes
5) For each size, cut 3 small pieces of cardboard identical to it using normal scissors. These cardboard pieces will go in between your book pages, to add thickness to your tree.
6) Place 3 sheets of the biggest size of paper together and slide them down the chopstick to the tree. Rotate each paper so that they are pointing out in different directions.
7) Then add a sheet of cardboard on top.
8) Repeat steps 6-7 slowly decreasing the size of paper as you go, until you reach the top. If you didn’t manage to reach the top, cut off the chopstick 1-2cm from the end of your paper tree.
9) Take a button of your preferred colour and glue it vertically (standing up) to the chopstick. Go creative and add other embellishments.
10) Coat the tips of the paper tree with glitter glue.
CD ORNAMENTS (Level 2)
MATERIALS:
2 unwanted CDs
1 christmas glass ornament
Scissors
UHU glue/superglue (any other strong glue)
DIRECTIONS:
1. Cut up the CDs into different small shapes and sizes, at least approximately 5cm long.
2. Glue a small dot onto the non-shiny side of the CD and then paste it on the ornament.
3. Continue gluing until the ornament is completely covered.
4. Place ribbon in the inside of the ornament in order to prevent seeing the glue dots from the outside.
3D FLOWERS (Level 4)
Credits: wikihow
MATERIALS:
9 square pieces of papers of desired colour
Scissors
Scotch tape
Stapler
DIRECTIONS:
1. Fold one square paper into half, and you will get a triangle.
2. Fold the big triangle into half. Note where the line is. Now, unfold it and draw 3 small triangles parallel to the line of the big triangle (refer to step 1).
3. Cut along these lines, but leave about 2 cm to the top on both sides uncut.
4. Unfold the triangle again, to get a square. Rotate the square such that it looks like a diamond when it faces you.
5. Fold the innermost paper lines together and scotch tape them together to form a tube.
6. Flip the paper over to the reverse side. Tape the second innermost paper lines together to form a tube.
7. Repeat steps 5-6 till all the paper sides have been joined.
8. Repeat steps 1-6 with the other square pieces of paper.
9. Join 3 pieces of completed paper together at the tip and stapler them. Repeat on the other 6 pieces of completed paper, you will have 3 bunches.
10. Join the 3 bunches together at the tip and stapler them. In addition to them, stapler the arms of the bunches together to secure it.
GLITTER GLASS VASE (Level 3)
Credits: asmomseesit
MATERIALS:
Plain glass vase
Glitter spray paint
Masking tape(thick kind)
DIRECTIONS:
1. Find a plain glass vase. A round vase is a bit easier to work with in this case.
2. Use masking tape to create your lines. Cut a single piece into two, one wider than the other to vary the decoration. Then, fold the edge slightly over the rim into the glass at an angle and wrap around the vase until you reach the bottom. You can repeat this as many times as you’d like, varying the width of the tape.
3. Give it a few good coats. In a well ventilated area, take a can of glitter spray paint Spray at least an arm’s length away and turn frequently. You don’t want to coat to heavily with each coat or it will drip. Let it dry about 20 minutes in between each coat and apply 2-3 coats or more, depending on how deep you want the color to be.
4. Once the vase is completely dry, remove the tape slowly. Your vase is complete!
RUDOLPH WREATH (Level 2)
MATERIALS:
Silver garland of colour of your choice
Wreath
12 inches of wire
2 – 4 branches (any branches that resemble antlers)
UHU glue/superglue (any other strong glue)
Masking Tape
One red glass ball ornament
DIRECTIONS:
1. Attach the antlers (branches) using the masking tape, wrap the tape around the wreath and branch on each side to make it look like antlers on the side of a reindeer head.
2. Once the antlers are attached, you wrap the garland around the wreath. Glueing the start of the tinsel with a bit of glue, wrap it around and glue the end. Repeat it with however much garland you want.
3, When your garland is glued on, add the nose. Thread the bit of wire through the ornament loop, find a good spot to make a “nose” on the wreath, and wrap the wire around the wreath. As you wrap you can hide the wire under the tinsel, to keep it hidden.
4. Hang it up
BOW GARLAND (Level 2)
MATERIALS:
Bow tie pasta
Metallic spray paint
Glitter
Decorative baker’s twine
DIRECTIONS:
1. Lay the bow tie pasta on some newspaper. Spray the metallic paint on the pasta
2. Add the glitter onto the sprayed pasta immediately after spraying so it will stick well
3. Do steps 1 & 2 for the other side of the pasta
4. Tie the pasta to the twine and continue to add until satisfied.
SANTA HATS (Level 3)
MATERIALS:
Styrofoam cones (you can even use a piece of a poster board, rolled up)
Red fabric
Black velvet fabric
White pom-pom balls
White fur fabric
Square Rhinestone jewels (or jewels of your choice)
DIRECTIONS:
1. First cover the cone with fabric and use the hot glue it to keep it in place
2. Next add on the pom pom poof ball at the top of the cone and then the fur at the bottom, using the glue gun to stick it.
3. Add the black velvet fabric around the centre of the cone to create a belt.
4. Lastly add the jewels onto the black velvet fabric to create the belt buckle.
5. Let it all dry for about an hour, and then you’re ready to put it around your house
SNOW GLOBE (Level 3)
MATERIALS:
Clean jars with their lids
Bottled water
Glycerin (available at pharmacies)
Glitter
Epoxy
Sand paper
DIRECTIONS:
1. Make sure the jars are cleaned and dried thoroughly.
2. Using the sandpaper, scuff up the underside of the lid and then attach your choice of figurines using a bit of epoxy according to the packaging’s instructions.
3. Let the epoxy dry completely and then fill the jar just short of full with distilled water.
4. Next, add a tiny drop of glycerin to the water. Too much is going to make the water kind of thick and chunky.
5. Add the glitter to the jar, using more or less depending on how snowy you’d like the snow globe to appear. Tinsel glitter gives the best snow-like look.
6. Insert the figurine, screw the lid on firmly and give it a good shake. You can also paint or decorate the lid of the jar by either spray painting the lids first or gussy it up with washi tape.
