3D Apple Greeting Card

In Guiyang, there is a tradition for people to give each other apples as gifts for Christmas.

My pile of apples wrapped in ridiculous amounts of cellophane.

I wanted to make something for my students that was meaningful, and I really liked the idea of these recycled book crafts, so I decided to take my own spin on it and make a 3D apple out of a notebook!

First I grabbed some notebooks (not the spiral bound kind), and ripped off the cover.

Then I drew the outline of an apple and cut it out.

I colored the edges of the apple with a red marker. If I had spray paint or a red ink pad, I would've rather used that, but I'm in China. Those are luxuries I am not willing to go out of my way to obtain.

I wrote in a Christmas message on the pages of the apple and gently tugged on all the pages to fan them out. Then I glued on a little twig to one of the folds and voila! Paper apple! (I really wish I had spray paint or something but it's not bad!)

 

 

Hehe an apple on an Apple! Get it?

I probably won't make this for Christmas in America, but it might be a cute teacher gift if you put pictures of students or thumbprints with their signatures on the pages.  :)

Happy crafting!

Construction Paper Holiday Wreath!

Hello, friends! Recently, I decided to continue my limited-resource holiday decorating by creating a Christmas wreath out of construction paper, and it turned out AWESOME! So I thought I'd share it all with you!

First, I cut out a wreath-shaped circle out of cardboard. The outer ring is 8 inches in diameter and the inner ring is 4 inches.

Next, I cut out about 50 circles from green construction paper. These were 2.5 inches in diameter.

I pinched the center of each circle, folding the rest of the circle into random ruffly shapes.

Next I just took some glue and glued a bunch of the folded/crumpled circles onto the outer perimeter.

Repeat for the inside perimeter.

Then I just filled in all the blank inside spots!

Finally, at the end I just added a little bow at the bottom to make it look festive.. if I had more beads or craft supplies, I might have added some red or gold balls to decorate the rest of the wreath, but I think it still looks fine the way it is!

Tada! Super easy and super cute!

Cardboard Christmas Tree Cutout

Thanksgiving is over, which means it is unofficially Christmas time!

People in China don't really celebrate Christmas like Americans do, so finding Christmas decorations is not exactly as simple as going to the nearest party store. In fact, I don't even know if party stores exist here.

That being said, without a bunch of department stores and malls showcasing holiday-themed gifts and radio stations playing Christmas music 24/7, feeling the "Christmas spirit" is a little difficult. All that really means is that I need to put a little more effort into creating a Christmas atmosphere in my home, so this weekend I made my own Christmas tree!

Technically, I COULD have just gone down to Walmart and bought a plastic Christmas tree, but I didn't want to spend the money on something I will only use for one month of one year.

So instead, I went to the little market next to my dorm and bought two big styrofoam boards (cardboard will work too). By some Christmas miracle, the boards were already painted green!

Next, because I am not really a good artist, I went on Google and found an outline of a Christmas tree that I liked. Even with the Google image as a reference, just drawing the tree outline freehand on the giant green board was too difficult for me, so I superimposed the tree picture onto a grid. I then drew a corresponding grid onto one of the green boards and drew the tree outline grid by grid.

Actually, the tree outline I chose was symmetrical, so I only did this for the left side of the tree. Then after I cut it out using a razor blade, I took the leftover section that I had just cut off, flipped it over onto the other side, and traced the right side of the tree onto the board.

After you cut out one tree, trace the outline onto the other board and cut that one out too, so  you end up with two identical Christmas tree cut outs.

Next, draw a straight line exactly down the middle of both trees. One one tree, cut a slit from the top to halfway down the tree. On the other tree, cut a slit from the bottom up to halfway up the tree.

Now comes the tricky part. Turn the two cutouts perpendicular to each other and using the slits you just cut, slide one tree on top of the other.


If all goes well, your tree should be able to stand up on its own like this!

And then as a party activity or kids craft you can have people make their own paper ornaments and tape them onto the tree branches!

I had some little helpers make ornaments for the tree!

Happy crafting!

Easy Halloween Decorations

The other foreign teachers and I decided to throw a Halloween party for our students this year! China, however, does not celebrate Halloween, so we soon realized that we could not just go to the store and buy a bunch of ready-made Halloween decorations.

In fact, I think we are all starting to realize that LOTS of things come ready-made at the store in America. Laurie was telling a story about how she was trying to explain to students that in America, soup comes already cooked in cans and all you have to do is heat it up. When I think about it, that does seem kind of weird and space-age-ish.

Anyway, so now we are forced to make our own Halloween decorations with our limited resources, and it has actually been fun and not too difficult!

I painted a little backdrop for students to take pictures in front of.

Before

After a mere hour and a half of painting

Some students cut out bats and attached them to string, but my personal favorites are the cut out jack-o-lanters, ghosts, and bats from construction paper!

These are REALLY simple to make, but in case you don't know (and many students here did not know), I can show you!

First, cut out a strip of paper!

 Then, fold over one end of the strip as big as you want your cut-out to be.

Fold the rest of the strip back and forth until you get a zig zag, trying to keep each fold the same size as the original one.

With the folds on the left and right sides of the paper, draw your character on the top flap of paper. Remember to have the picture run off the sides with the folds. A student was making this and decided to draw a flower right in the middle of the paper - I told her it wouldn't connect but she didn't understand me. So when she cut it out she just got five pieces of paper cut out in a shape of a flower. She was embarrassed.

I drew a bat!

Then cut it out (cut through all the folds!)

 

Unfold it, add some faces, and you're done!

So easy, right? And they look really cute all hung up as decorations! I am looking forward to our Halloween party! I will be sure to post pictures later :)

Don't these ghosts look cute hanging across my doorway?