Monday Makery - Festive Paper Decorations

Festive Paper Garland

I know, I know, It is perhaps a little early to start with the Christmas decorations but with only 7 weeks to go before Christmas is here and with the weekends being booked up with visiting family, Christmas shopping and trips to the theatre planned I am not wanting to leave anything 'til the last minute. Besides we've got so many makeries lined up for you we thought we had better start early.

This week we're bringing you an assortment of beautiful creations all made with paper and card.

They're easy and fun to make, colourful and requires minimal tools and media.

We'll guide you through each one and we'll be bringing you different themes and creations each week. So, there'll be lots to choose from and lots to keep children busy. Here we begin with a festive garland, though you can use these as decorations for any occasion and you can play with different colours to suit.

Here's what you'll need:

• Coloured paper, card, wrapping paper or scraps of wallpaper
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Ruler
• Paper clips
• Needle and thread
• Glue - either pva or gluestick is perfect

*a little hint on paper - Designers Guild's Sales are a great way to pick huge rolls of wallpaper at £3. a roll. It makes wonderful wrapping paper, great for crafts as well as lining cupboards and wardrobes. I pick up armfuls of them in as many designs as I can carry !

Here's how:

1. Cut a strip of paper - 10cm by 30cm for the larger and 6cm by 16cm for the smaller.
2. Starting with the smaller side, the width, fold over about 1cm then turn the paper over and fold over again back on itself. Keep going to create a concertina with the strip of paper.
3. Bend the stacked concertina in half to mark the centre of the fan and tie a piece of thread around the middle to hold the centre together.
4. Open up each opposing side like wings and glue together. We used a paper clip to hold them together whilst the glue dried.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 until you feel you have enough to create your garland.
6. Thread your needle and string up the circles in whatever order and pattern you like.

Paper Dove Decorations

I love how versatile these hanging birds are. We've been making them to hang along the banisters for some instant festive fun but I'm quite tempted to make some miniature ones for the tree and perhaps a mobile to hang as a centrepiece above the table.

They're incredibly easy to make and only require very basic materials to put together.

Here's what you'll need:

• card
• pencil
• scissors
• needle and cottton for hanging

Here's how:

1. Create a template for your bird onto card. It really can be a very simple outline as you can see from the one we drew!
2. Using your template draw and cut out as many birds as you like.
3. Bend the bird in half softly so not create a crease and make a cut in the centre. This is where you'll thread the wings.
4. Take a piece of coloured or patterned paper or card and make a fold up from the bottom about 1cm then turn the paper over and fold back on itself. Keep going to create a paper concertina.
5. Feed the concertina paper through the centre of the bird and fan out its wings.  

Hang them up by threading cotton above their wings. Group them together to create a focal point in a room, string them up along the banisters or create a love-dove mobile with mistletoe.

Festive Hanging Bulbs

I remember making these when I was young and who knew making paper onions was like riding a bike, once you know how you never forget!

You can make them more festive with deep reds and festive patterned paper but we were rather drawn to the bright colours in our stack of paper and card.

Here's what you'll need:

• thick paper or card
• scissors, pen and ruler
• gluestick
• needle and thread for hanging

Here's how:

1. Begin by cutting your card into 5 strips. You can vary the lengths as you wish depending on how big you want your decorations to be, the ones we made here are made with 2 strips measuring 11.5", 2 strips measuring 9.5" and 1 strip measuring 8".
2. Line the strips of paper up ready for gluing as follows: large, medium, small, medium, large. Glue and stack each strip on top of the other in this sequence then fasten with a paper clip to hold in place whilst waiting for the glue to hold.
3. Then, begin sticking the other end of strips, curving the paper to meet each end length. Fasten with a paper clip to hold until the glue has dried.
4. Hang using cotton threaded through the top of your decoration.

We hope you enjoy making your own festive decorations - it's certainly got us in the mood for some Christmas magic! 

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This is part of our Monday Makery where each week we bring you a recipe to bake, a craft to create and simple ideas for fun things to make with children. We know that sometimes the craft isn't about the final finish but having created something together and we want to encourage everyone to have a go. I am certainly a 'newbie' when it comes to making things and trust me I'll leave all baking recipes to my sister, you see the thing is my girls love it, they feed me with inspiration and I love that our home is a constant and evolving state of creating and creations.

Our daily blogs offer you a sneak preview in our 'once upon a week' where we give you an insight into a week with Sisters Guild, a guide to whats on, with places to visit and things to do with all the family in our 'Art of Living', on Tuesday we bring you a little closer to our designers and why we chose them with 'The Story behind Our Collections' and a little closer to the bloggers, crafters and friends of Sisters Guild with our fun 'Tell us its Tuesday', whilst on Wednesday we show you new arrivals and inspiring discoveries in the Sisters Guild Boutique. To find where we get our inspiration from take a look at 'An A-Z of Sisters Guild' ; a collection of images inspired by the words which express the meaning of what we believe.

Christmas is coming and we've been busy putting together a little inspiration to help you through. We're helping Father Christmas with his lists and guiding you though our selection of gifts and decorations.