Paper Strip Ornament

For a couple of years now, I’ve had the vision of setting up a second Christmas Tree that would feature all hand made ornaments.

Every year it sounds super great idea. And every holiday season passes and I’ve done nothing about it.

Sound familiar?

This year I’ve decided to tackle this as a solid project. I’m going to make one different type of ornament a month for 12 months. Since most will be made out of paper, it will be easy to make multiples to fill a small tree.

For the record, I’m saying this all out loud, right here, for accountability.

And I’m inviting you to play along. This will be fun, or weird, especially in August when we’re working on ornaments and complaining about the lack of air condtioning.

First up is this super simple ornament.

You don’t even need any fancy craft tools to make it.

You will need:

• • Scissors or a paper trimmer

• • Light Weight Card Stock. Double sided would be best

• • Stapler

• String

Five strips of paper create each ornament.  The center strip determines the height. The others stack on either side in two different sizes to create a bulb shape. Varying the heights creates different widths for the bulb. All the widths need to be the same.

I made ornaments that were 1″ wide, and I made some that were 1/2″ wide.

My first one used two strips that were 8.5″ tall, two strips that were 6.5″ tall, and one strip that was 5.25″ tall.

Stack the strips so the shortest one is in the center, and then stagger them so that the get bigger on either side from there.

Make sure they are stacked evenly to the bottom, and then staple. On the thinner version, I turned my staple vertical.

Line everything up at the top, and staple again. The wider version was a little trickier to get to line up at that end – there wasn’t as much “give” in those strips as in the thinner version.

A short piece of twine looped and knotted makes a perfect hanger.

I made various sizes with the leftover bits of cut strips.

Yay!  Ornament One is Done!

That’s a bajillion percent productivity improvement over last year!

Don’t forget to check back in February for the second ornament in the series.

To create the other ornaments in this series, check out:

No. 2 Glitter Snowflake Ornament

No. 3 Paper Christmas Tree Ornament

No. 4 3-D Paper Snowflake Ornament

No. 5 Paper Strip Ball Ornament

No. 6 Sweater Letters Garland

No. 7 Glitter Paper Star Ornament

No. 8 Hipster Paper Reindeer Ornament

No. 9 Peppermint Candy Ornament

No. 10 Brown Paper Packages Ornament

No 11.  Chalkboard and Wood Slice Ornament

No. 12 Santa Hat Topper and Full Tree Reveal