3D paper ornaments

When you’ve got young kids, you want safe Christmas tree ornaments – those glass ones are just accidents waiting to happen. In comparison, these ‘onions’ are safe, simple to make and look pretty hanging en masse from a tree or strung together as a garland. Also cute for birthday parties or as a mobile in a baby’s room.

To make 3D paper ornaments, you’ll need:

A4 sheets of coloured paper
Scissors
A hot glue gun
String
Single hole punch

Step one

Cut the A4 paper into 1.5-2cm wide strips the length of the page. You need three strips per ‘onion’.

Leave one strip as is. Then cut about 1.5 centimetres from the end of another strip. Then cut about 3cm off the end of the third strip so you are left with three strips of different length.

Step two

Starting with the longest piece, place a strip of glue at one end and stick the second longest strip of paper on top.

Repeat with the smallest strip so you have all three strips stuck together with one edge all neatly lined up and the other visibly showing the different lengths.

Step three

Apply more glue to the end of the glued together paper strips. Then bend the bottom of the shortest strip up to meet the glue end and press it into place. Repeat with the other two strips. You should have a kind of three-tired teardrop shape.

Step four

Glue the centre of the bottom of the paper strips together so that they stick together at the base of the ‘onion’. Gently push the ‘onion’ down to flatten it out a little more.