Decorations at Sparkles Christmas

It's new challenge time at Sparkles Christmas and this time our theme is Decorations. We want to see either a hand made decoration, or a card that features Christmas decorations of some kind. We have two prizes from our lovely sponsors this time:

A £10 voucher from Crafters Companion



a $25 voucher from Deedee's Digis



I decided to make and decorate a cracker. My basic cracker was printed onto thin card from Debbie Moore's "Art Deco Magical Christmas" CD,  but you could use this technique to decorate any kind of home made cracker - or you could even buy a box of ready made ones, remove the tacky decorations and decorate them yourself to match your Christmas table!

To make the frills, you will need a soft paper that crinkles up well without tearing - crepe paper is perfect, but I used a very soft metallic paper, a bit like reinforced mulberry paper.

For each end of the cracker, cut a piece of your frill paper about 20cm x 10cm and fold it in half lengthwise with the right sides facing inwards. Then cut a piece of strong decorative cord and hang the paper over it, so the cord sits in the fold. Hold the ends of the cord in both hands, with the cord taut and the paper hanging down between your hands, then use the fingers of one hand to gather up the paper - "walk" your fingers along the fold to gather it towards your hand. This is a lot easier to do than to describe!

Now tie the cord around the narrowest part of the neck of the cracker, adjusting the frill to fit neatly around the neck. Tie it firmly, then either make a decorative bow in the remaining cord at the top/front of the cracker or  position the knot at the back, cut off the ends and save them for another project. Carefully open out the folded paper to reveal a double sided frill. Repeat on the other end of your cracker, then decorate the body of the cracker as you wish - I have simply added a die cut snowflake and a gem.

You can vary the size of the frill by using wider or narrower paper - or even a narrower strip on top of a wider one in two different colours. Some fabrics and laces would lend themselves well to this too.

I am sharing this with:
A bit more time to craft - Anything Goes
Craft Rocket Challenge - month long Anything Goes
Winter Wonderland - Anything Goes
Allsorts Challenge - Christmas