Video:How to Make a Christmas Card Ornament

SHARE ON                

Transcript:How to Make a Christmas Card Ornament

Hey, everybody. This is Julie Edmonds for About.com. When it comes to Christmas time, what is more fun the trimming the tree, giving and receiving cards and getting in the holiday spirit. Each ornament and card has it own story that we can share. But at the end of the season you have cards that have sentimental value but you don’t really need to keep. Why not make ornaments out of them and keep their stories without the clutter.

Supplies For Making a Christmas Card Ornament

You'll need just a few things to make this project happen:

• Old Chistmas cards or magazines
• A stapler and staples (or any kind of fastener like glue)
• Some scissors
• A paper clip

Construct the Christmas Card Ornament

Start by making a guide circle, it should not be too big as we will need 20 circles in the end. I made mine with a 2 inch diameter. Next, cut out your guide circle and use it to create another 19. After you have all 20 of your circles you will want to fold in 3 edges creating an isosceles triangle. The best way to do this it to fold as evenly as possible into the center of the circle. When you are done you should have 20 triangles with curved folded edges like this.

For this project we are using old Christmas cards but this could also be done as a summer project using paper plates or cut outs form magazines to make a bigger ball.

Creating the Pieces

Now here comes the exciting part where the ornament starts to take its shape. First take five of the triangles and staple or fasten them together to make what looks like a little hat. You know you have done this right when there you can lay it flat and have kind of a point standing up. Next make another hat just like the first one. Now that you have your two ends it is time to make the middle. The middle section will be made up of the final ten triangles. Staple them all together so that they form a straight line. From the other side it should look like kind of a zigzag pattern like this. Once you have all your parts make take all 3 pieces and staple or fasten them together.

Hang the Ornament

Now you have a Christmas icosahedron! As you can feel, it is pretty strong and will last for many seasons. But here is still one more step. Take your paper clip and bend out so that is one long piece of wire. Next bend both ends so that they make a little hook like this. Take one of the hooks and poke it into the vertex, that is a corner where five of the sides come together. You are now ready to hang it on the tree.

By recycling old Christmas cards you save waste, memories and space all while having fun a creating a new story for your tree.

Thanks for watching! To learn more, visit us on the Web at Parenting.About.com.