What to do with your received Christmas cards (and how to gain a free Christmas deccie for next year!)

The finished product:

What you need:  Christmas cards – enough to cut out 20 circles of the same size. You might be able to cut several circles from one card, if it’s a bigger one. You can even use the flattened middles of crackers, if you don’t have enough cards.  A glue stick  A small length of string or ribbon or similar  Some sticky tape

First:  Find something round to use as your template. Make sure that you choose something of a size where you can get 20 circles out of your cards. A coaster, ramekin dish or the bottom of a mug can work well, but anything round will do.  The smaller your circles, the smaller your finished ball will be, of course, but the size is up to you.

Then:  Draw around your template object in pencil, on the backs of the cards. Position the image you want in the middle of the circle. Remember, you need 20 circles in total.  Once you have drawn all 20 circles, you can cut them out. Don’t cut them out sooner in case you have miscounted before! (Been there, done that, hence my first one was finished with a circle from a fish fingers box…)

The next bit is tricky:  On the back of each circle, you need to draw an equilateral triangle. This is fiddly and could take several attempts to get it equilateral (even on all sides).  My tip is to do one and, once you get it right, cut a paper triangle template out of any scrap paper or card. You can then use this as a template for the other 19 circles and you’ve only had to do the fiddly measuring once! Genius!

With that done:  You should now have 20 circles with triangles drawn on the back of them.  Using a ruler and an open pair of scissors, carefully score along the triangle’s lines.

With that done:  Now, the three semi-circles will fold upwards on the picture side. So, from the back, you will see a blank triangle. From the picture side, you will see the image in the triangle and three flaps coming towards you. Back – blank and flaps folded away from you Front – pattern and flaps folded towards you

Now:  You are going to stick some of the circles’ flaps to other ones. You do this in three steps.

ONE (making the bottom):  Take FIVE of them. Use your glue stick to glue one flap (not the bottom one) to another circle.  You do this for all five until it looks a bit like this:  This is now the bottom of your ball!

TWO (making the top):  Do exactly the same with another five circles, this time pause after the third.  Before you stick on the fourth one, tape your ribbon or string, looped (which is what your ball will hang from) to the back of one of the circles, so it pokes through the middle. Then glue the last two on, leaving the string poking out of the middle. The ribbon your ball will hang from

THREE (making the middle):  You now need to make the section which sits between the two pieces you have just created.  For this, you glue your last 10 circles in a strip, alternating which way up the triangle goes.

THREE (making the middle):  That done, you glue the one end to the other, to make a ring.  Tip: at any point, you can use little pieces of tape on the backs to join one triangle more securely to the next one. Glue these two flaps together

Finally:  At this point, it’s at last pretty easy and pretty clear what you need to do!  Flatten the flaps on the middle section (the ring you just made in step 3).  Glue the flaps of the base to the flaps on the middle section.  Then do the same on the other side of the middle section for the top.  You’re done! So much better than binning your cards – well done!