.paper ball tutorial.

[sapphireorb.livejournal.com]

hey everybody!

yesterday i posted some pictures of these paper balls that i made and have hanging up in my room.
a few people asked how i made them...so here's a tutorial!

::image heavy!::

alright, this is my first time doing one of these...hope it makes sense!



alright, for starters here are the things you will need:
1 piece of posterboard
circle and triangle stencil (don't worry! i'll show that shortly)
scissors
pen or pencil (your choice)
fun pictures such as magazine pages (optional)

not pictured:
elmers glue and stapler (we'll get to those later)

here we go!



here are the stencils i was talking about..

i got mine from someone else, but i can't imagine they'd be difficult to make. they're cut out of posterboard, so they hold up well.
the circle is 4 inches across
each side of the triangle is 3 1/2 inches...i suck at math but the next picture might help you figure out how to make it (eep!)



so once you have your stencils all ready you need to start making circles! 20 to be exact!
the posterboard i have is gold on one side and silver on the other (i'm not sure where my mom got it..but it's pretty sweet) just trace 20 circles onto the posterboard and then cut them all out



all the circles cut out :)



on the balls that i already made i glued magazine pictures onto some of the circles. some are circle and others are triangle. you can use the stencils to cut out those shapes on the pictures you want to use and then glue them to your posterboard circles. it works best if you glue the circle pictures down BEFORE folding and the triangle ones AFTER



you'll need the triangle stencil now.
the next few pictures will show how to fold the circles (i hope):



yay! all done! give your fingers a breather!

next you'll need to get out the elmers glue, or your stapler. to connect the circles together you can use either ones, i use the glue because then you don't see staples sticking out the sides...that and the stapler i have doesn't have the strength to go through two layers of posterboard (i inherited it from my great grandma...weird, i know)

so you'll take two of the circles and put glue on one of the "flaps" of one circle



now pinch that flap and one from the other circle together. you only need to hold it for a few seconds. the glue sets up pretty quick.



**if you were stapling you would simply staple the two flaps together
***i guess that double sided tape would work nicelyl for this as well..hmm...

now...you need to glue 5 of these together so that it looks like this:



you'll probably notice that the "flaps" on the circles aren't always the same size...that's ok! to make sure that it lines up pretty well, flip the circles over so that you see the back side. when you glue them together try to make the inside edges line up. this way the pieces fit better as you add to the ball.



once you have the "initial 5" connected, you want to continue to add on in groups of five. this part may be kind of confusing...



the part that i'm holding in my hand is the "initial 5". the piece that is to the right of that is another circle that i glued on. from there i can create another group of 5...i hope someone out there understands me :(

here's a picture of the ball with only one circle missing:



and here it is finished!



now that you're completed your first paper ball you can get even more creative!
i was thinking of using a hole punch to make holes in the middle of each circle and the poking christmas lights through them.
or maybe cutting larger holes in each circle so that you can see the inside and having some sort of picture or object in the middle :)

the possibilities are endless!

have fun!