No Ugly Ornament Preview: Paper Ballerinas

Last November I ventured into unfamiliar crafting waters when I challenged myself to make a Christmas ornament every day of the month.  Thankfully I had only one prerequisite, set out by my oldest son, it couldn’t be ugly.  Now, I can’t lie, where there are winners there are losers.  Not every ornament made it onto our tree but it was still fun and brought our family together creatively.  While I looked forward to doing it all over again this year I also knew I wanted to shake things up, so…

This year, I’m so excited to announce that craft and DIY bloggers from around the blogosphere will be visiting and sharing their favorite ornament tutorials every day for the entire month of November, and don’t worry they know the rules…it can’t be ugly!

I know November is still two weeks away but I had to kick things off right so today I’m sharing my newest ornament, a Paper Ballerina!  Follow the read more- link below to find out how to make your own!

Paper Ballerinas

Supplies

• This image from Graphics Fairy
• glitter glue
• book pages or any other thinner paper
• vellum
• hot glue gun
• needle and gold thread

Directions

Since the first time I spied this image on Karen’s site I knew I wanted to make an ornament out of it.  The original plan was just a bit of glitter embellishments but after I printed her out I knew I wanted to add another dimension to her skirt.  I’m getting ahead of myself, start off by printing out your image.  Be sure to FLIP it in whatever program you are using so that you’ll have a front and back that line up.  (If you don’t know how to do this I can give you quick instructions using Word, just let me know.)
 
After cutting the two ladies out, I carefully glued them together using glitter glue.  Why glitter glue?  I’m not the most consistent cutter outer, this way if my cuts don’t match up the glitter shows not the white of the paper.

As she dried I made two small medallions with my Martha Stewart folding tool out of the old book pages.  I originally tried using scrapbooking paper but the kind I have is to think and didn’t fold well at all. The size of your medallions depends on the size of your girl.  You’ll want it to go from tip to tip of her skirt.


Next, I glued the medallions along the top line of the skirt.  I had to unfold the medallion a little and work the paper to get it to curve.  Just play with it a little, I promise it’s not that hard.



Here’s where I started to hit a stumbling block.  She still needed something and for a moment I thought about adding steel wool…what?  It could’ve worked!


In the end I ended up going with another medallion 1/2 inch longer than the first and made of vellum.  I love this stuff!


Finally, I threaded a needle with the gold thread and put it through her head for hanging.  Wow, what a sentence.

Isn’t she lovely?