***ETA: I found her! These were taught by Kat from Everybody Loves Raymond ... and Kat! She has a tutorial up so click on the link and go over and give her some props. Her's are very classy in black and white, but since I'll be making these with a 6 year old I stuck with the traditional pumpkin orange. I don't know what blog etiquette is on making something you saw somewhere else, so if I should dump the tutorial part here and just leave up the pictures with her link, someone let me know!
For this project, you will need
- halloweenish scrapbooking paper (double sided looks the best, but its not necessary)
- small scraps of green paper
- two paper brads in a coordinating color
- a pencil
- scissors or a fancy cutting tool
- hole punch
They are super simple. Cut 8x8 halloween orange scrapbooking paper into 1 inch strips. You could use any size paper and you may want to create several different sizes to do a vignette or put in a basket or bowl. Shorter strips will make a shorter pumpkin with a smaller diameter.
For this pumpkin, I decided to use two sheets of 8x8 paper, and obviously got 16 strips. I used craft scissors to make a fun edge on half the strips. If I were doing it again with 8x8 paper, I'd make about 4 more strips to make it more full. I wish I had double sided paper because I don't really care for the white showing through, but I didn't have any at work. (Gasp - yes, I am at work! Luckily I work for myself so I won't get fired!) The paper I used for the leaves is double sided, and it just looks better.
Punch a hole into the center of each end of each strip. Try really hard to get the hole in the same place on each strip or you'll end up with a wonky sphere. Since I was using striped paper, I punched at the end of the first stripe, and was able to punch 3 strips at a time with my punch. Stack them up neatly. Hopefully you can see through the holes with no trouble.
Cut out a leaf shape or two and punch a hole, then stack this right on top at one end. To create the leaf, take a small square of green paper and fold it in half. Trace and cut half a leaf shape in such a way that the folded edge becomes the center line of the leaf. I did it this way so even if it was a goofy looking leaf, at least both sides were even. I cut two sizes of leaves. Having the fold line down the center of the leaf adds a lifelike dimension to it also. Punch a hole in the center of the base of your leaves. Cut a narrow strip about 6 inches long & punch a hole in one end. Then cut down the center (almost all the way to the hole) to create 2 curlies. Stack this strip in between the two leaves and place the three pieces on top of one end of your orange strips. Put a brad into the holes at each end of the paper strips. You can curl the leaf tentacles around a pencil at any time.
Once your two brads are inserted, begin to fan out the strips. As you work, they will start to create a ball. Its quite ingenious!
I wanted to do a test run before we make some tonight to be sure I know what I'm doing. I'm not quite sure how to make them sit flat. This guy is a little topsy turvy but I think he's terribly cute. I'll be back later to show you what else we make tonight!
A linking I will go .... Check out the cute projects at some of these link parties!
