Somehow the festive season always seems so much more jolly when decorations are involved.
Of course, you could tootle off to the shop and spend money on fancy, shiny, plastic, commercial decorations that might, or might not, land up in the bin after all the festivities.
Or you could make your own.
Like paper chains – they are nothing new – but they’re still fun and easy to make.
All you need is… imagination, an old magazine, scissors, a ruler, a glue stick or stapler.
- Cut the magazine into strips. (~2cm strips are very easy to use and you get a chain of about 60cm long from one page.) If you make the strips 1cm or less, it becomes a little fiddly, but you obviously get many more strips out of a page so your chain is much longer.
- Cut (or tear) all the strips in half.
- Make a circle out of the first strip (overlapping the ends) and glue or staple it closed. Stapling is easier but is less environmentally friendly because when the paper breaks down you are left with little bits of metal that hang around for a whole lot longer.
- Interlock your next piece of paper through the first circle and close it.
- Keep going until you have a chain long enough to stretch from one side of the room to the other – or however you want to drape it. Better check with your parental agent before you stick things on the walls though.
Get creative and make little bunches of shorter chains to hang at the end of the long chain.
Traditionally chains used to be made out of coloured crepe paper. You can easily still get this paper and it’s not very expensive. Crepe paper has a bit of a stretch to it – so does not break very easily. It also comes in lovely bright colours.
If you are financially challenged though – magazines work just as well. You can even use newspaper!
You could glitz the chains up with a bit of glitter… but I was reading the other day that glitter is also becoming an environmental no-no. It is now classed as a micro-particle – it gets into the water system and does all sorts of nasty things to birds and other little critters.
Next week we’ll make some more decorations so stay tuned!
Have fun and stay safe this holiday.
Sibo