DIY Paper Star Ornaments

Over the weekend I have been a Christmas crafting and decorating machine.  What happened was that late Friday night I realized that I'm signed up for the Canadian Bloggers Christmas Home Tour (I'm up on Wednesday).  I had just started putting up some decorations on our mantel, but that was it!  To say that the weekend ended up being a bit of a Christmas decorating and photographing scramble would be an understatement. 

Some of the decorating included making some paper star ornaments.  I posted a pic of my stars on Instagram and had lots of comments on them including some requests for a tutorial.  So today I'm here with the how to.  I first saw these ornaments on my insta friend's feed last Christmas and knew that they were something I'd love to make this year.  They ended up being one of the simplest and fastest ornaments I've made.  Once I started making these I quickly ended up with a huge pile of paper stars.  I made a few different coloured stars since I'm going for a more colourful Christmas tree this year for the boys.  They're always asking me for more colour so I'm trying my best.  

In the picture above you get a little sneak peek at what's to come in my home tour on Wednesday.  We haven't gone to cut down our tree yet, but this little Charlie Brown tree is standing in for now.  Read on for the how to for my paper star ornaments.

DIY PAPER STARS

Materials  

cardstock/heavyweight paper,

hot glue,

string/twine,

wooden beads (optional)

star template

How To

1)  Cut out two of the triangle shapes from the template

2)  For each triangle shape fold the shape in half at each point keeping the right side facing out each time (3 folds total)

3) You will end up with two triangle shapes that look a little like pyramids

4)  Join the two triangles together.  *Take note of the notches in the centre of each side of the triangle.  You will use these notches to hold the two triangles together to form the star.*  With wrong sides facing together, pinch the point of one triangle together and place it between the centre notch of the other triangle.  Repeat this for each point on the triangle.  The notches on each of the triangles will hold the star together.  

5)  Take some twine/string and make a loop.  Attach the loop to one tip of the star using hot glue.

6)  If desired, thread a bead onto the loop for a finishing touch.

I hope you like these stars as much as I do.  

Don't forget about the Canadian Bloggers Christmas Home Tours that start today!  Below you'll find the schedule and don't forget to come back each day to see a new set of home tours from Monday to Thursday this week.  

Monday: 

AKA Design 

Northern Style Exposure 

The DIY Mommy 

Tuesday: 

The Creek Line House 

Restoration House 

Wednesday: 

Suburble 

The Happy Housie 

Nalle's House 

Thursday: 

Clean and Scentsible 

Fynes Designs 

Rambling Renovators 

A Pop of Pretty

Our DIY Advent Calendars

The Christmas decorating and DIYing really started at our house this week.  We even went a little crazy with the outdoor lights.  Although we put our usual Christmas lights up a couple of weeks ago, this past week Hubby, for some reason, decided that we needed more and now nearly every tree and bush in the front yard has some lights on it.  Even the garden shed got it's own set of lights. 

Around here we really love our advent calendars.  It's so fun to see the boys getting excited about Christmas.  I also feel like it's a great way to remember each day why we celebrate Christmas.  Recently, I came across a couple of really cute advent calendars on Pinterest.  I knew when I saw them that they would be perfect to use as numbers for the boys' advent calendar I made last year.  I also ended up making another super simple calendar to use in another part of the house (you'll see it later in this post).  These calendars are so cute that I thought I would share the links with you today.

The art on the calendar* I chose for the boys features various animals and was in the perfect black, white and gold colour scheme.  These images are so lovely that you could just use them as an advent calendar on their own.  If you're interested in making the pocket calendar you can find the DIY here.

*the calendar printables were presented as one picture per day so you'll have to go through each day to print the images.

 I had to include this photo of my youngest just for reference from last year's advent calendar.  He's grown so much and, apparently, I need to buy him some longer pants!

 Because I also ended up finding this calendar*, I decided to make yet another advent calendar.  I made a similar house-shaped holder as the one I use for my desk calendar and simply printed that images from the calendar onto card stock (I used photoshop to resize them).  The printed images are then mounted onto the plywood holder using tape.  I'll have to switch out the calendar page each day which I think will be quite fun since I'll have new art to enjoy right up until Christmas.
*the calendar printables were presented as one picture per day so you'll have to go through each day to print the images.

We're also planning on still using our wooden dowel tree advent so we'll have all sorts of Christmas excitement and anticipation throughout December!

DIY Wooden Wall Hanging

I think I may have an obsession with wall hangings!  I have another wall hanging to share with you today and I think you'll be surprised to find out what I used to make it.  It's also a project that is really simple and quick to make which would make it perfect to make for someone for Christmas.  Is it too early to bring up Christmas?

If you have followed this blog for any amount of time, you probably already know that I really love natural wood and pastel colours in my decor.  This little wall hanging definitely has both of those.  I originally made it for my fall home tour and I was hoping that my little "artwork" would look like an abstract take on some feathers or a bird's wing.  I'm not sure if I succeeded, but I think it turned out kind of cute. :)

 I chose to use white and a minty green sparingly in my wall hanging to create little pops of colour. The top part of the hanging is made from a scrap of grey wool felt.  Actual wool felt is so much nicer if you are able to source it.  For those of you that live in the Toronto area, you can buy wool felt scraps from The Felt Store by the pound for a reasonable price.  

These are what I used to make the body of the wall hanging.  They're really big craft sticks (like the popsicle sticks kids use to spread white glue).  I found them in the kids craft section at Michaels.  They also had a smaller size which would be great to make a mini version of this wall hanging.

I didn't take photos while I was making this wall hanging in the middle of the night, but took some photos after the fact and I think you'll still be able to get the idea of how to put the wall hanging together.   Here's the how to:

DIY SCALLOPED WOOD WALL HANGING

Materials:

34 large wood craft sticks (I found mine at Michaels)

craft paint in a couple of colours

Wool felt approximately " x "

Wooden dowel 

String

Hot Glue

Utility knife

How To:

1)  Paint a few craft sticks in the colours you have chosen.

2)  Use an utility knife and straight edge to cut two craft sticks in half lengthwise.  You will need these pieces on the edges of the hanging (you can see a close up of the half pieces in the photo above).

3)  Roughly layout all the craft sticks in the shape of the wall hanging to determine where you would like your painted sticks to be.  (you can use the picture of my completed project as a guide if you would like).  When you go to layout the pieces you will start at the bottom and work up (i.e., start with two craft sticks and then lay three on top and then four, etc.)  You'll want to stagger the pieces so that you end up with the scalloped pattern.

4)  Once you've figured out your pattern, you are ready to begin gluing all the craft sticks together.  You'll have to carefully move each row out of the way as you work from the bottom up to attach the rows one on top of the other.  I used a ruler as a guide for the placement of each craft stick (there is about a 2" reveal of the bottom of each craft stick - see photo above).  Once you've set up your guide, glue the backside of the three sticks that will lay on top of the first row (two initial sticks) to attach them, then glue the backside of the four pieces that will lay on top of the three you just attached, then glue five pieces on top of the four, etc.  When you get to the widest portion (5 pieces wide in my wall hanging), you will start incorporating the half pieces into every other row to keep the pattern going

5)  Sew a pocket at the top of the felt for the dowel to slip through.  If you don't want to sew you could always glue the felt directly to the dowel.

6)  Glue the bottom of the felt square to your craft stick assembly the same way you did when putting the craft sticks together.  To help get the felt straight, I drew a line a 2" from the bottom of the top row of craft sticks to use as a guide.  

7)  Insert the dowel into the pocket you made in step 5 and attach a string to either end of the dowel for a hanger.

I hope you like this little DIY.  I had fun coming up with a project from some pretty simple materials.

November Calendar

Happy November!  Here is this month's printable calendar in a lovely blush pink stripe.  I hope you like it!

Click on the image below to download your copy of the calendar. **for personal use only please**