Christmas tree bauble from last year’s Christmas cards

I came across this lovely idea for making use of old Christmas cards in an old Country Living magazine of December 2007. In 5 years I have made just one because they are phenomenally time consuming, although to their credit they do require a lot of Christmas cards for each bauble, especially if you ‘fussy cut’ them (that is you cut out the pieces taking care to place centrally the bit of picture/pattern you want to be visible).  

Instructions for making bauble: (8cm in diameter) 

From a pile of old Christmas cards, cut 21 circles (mine were 4 cm in diameter).

On one circle make an equilateral triangle with each apex on the edge of the circle. (Use a compass, adjusting it until you have made 3 marks for each point of the triangle.) Then cut out the triangle which you will use as a template to draw round on all the other circles (on the non decorative side of the card). Fold along the lines. I found the card easier to fold if I scored the lines firmly with a ruler and a very sharp pencil and scoring 60 lines is one reason it took me so long. Now glue the flaps of 5 circles together so the joints meet like a star. This is the top. Repeat the process for the bottom. The remaining 10 circles should be glued to form a long line whose ends can then be glued together to form the middle. At this point you might want to push a knotted ribbon or piece of string through the top of the star as it’s difficult to do when the whole thing is assembled. Now glue middle to top and bottom.

Little bulldog clips or the sort of tiny clothes pegs which have springs are very useful to hold the edges you’ve just glued. If you get too ambitious about the gluing and do too many at one go, the first ones tend to come unstuck. So, take your time. In all I think this one took me about 2 hours!

I have thought about going over all the edges with a gold pen. But enough is enough.

Photograph of recycled card Christmas bauble as shown in Country Living magazine December 2007

If you have children who like making things, this might be a good after Christmas/before going back to school activity  with the bonus that  the prettiest bits of this year’s cards find themselves reappearing on next year’s tree. If, however, you find yourself sitting into the small hours trying to make something of the sad remnants of badly cut out, randomly stuck, unattractive morsels of card abandoned by your children, give up and consign the lot to the recylcing bin.