The other day my daughter asked me how to make paper chain people. It brought me back to when I was a child, curious how paper chains were made. As a kid, the whole process seemed very mysterious. Keeping that in mind, I decided to create a paper chain garland that would be simple for a child to make. Since it's close to Christmas, we made gingerbread tissue paper garland. We used tissue paper instead of regular paper for a couple reasons. One, it's easier to cut through than standard paper. And two, since tissue paper is longer, you can make longer chains.
Supplies:
Tissue Paper
Cookie Cutters - Choose your shape
Pencil
Scissors
First thing you will need to do is fold your tissue paper. Start with a strip of paper slightly taller than the height of your cookie cutter. Fold tissue paper in half (refer to fig. 1). Continue to do this until you get the desired width. The more times you fold, the more images you will get.
Place your cookie cutter over the tissue and trace the outside with a pencil. It's important that the cookie cutter overlaps on both sides of the tissue paper. The two white lines drawn on the folds is where the trees will connect.
Cut out the tree making sure not to cut on the folds highlighted with white lines in the step above.
Unfold carefully and admire your pretty garland.
*Tip - You can iron tissue paper. Just make sure that the iron is on a low setting and you keep it moving. I ironed the tissue paper so it was nice and crisp before I made these.
5 comments:
Brilliant! Cookie cutter... I would have never thought to use that! Thanks for the awesome idea!
Happy Holidays to you and yours!
Love it! This is something I can do with the granddaughters. They love all things crafty and when you marry paper with scissors and something pretty and cute - big win!
Thanks!
Happy Holidays to you and yours. :)
very clever idea of using cookie cutter to make garland. I especially like how you make use of gingerbread man cutter to make paper chain people.
You can also use spray starch to give it a little more body before you iron it. The trick is to spray LIGHTLY. Otherwise the paper gets sticky and sticks to the iron. Sometimes I use a piece of parchment, folded in half with the tissue paper in the middle to keep that from happening.
I can't wait to give this one a try.
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