Nothing Scrooge About It

I am kind of odd about how I spend money. I haven't had any extra for quite some time now, but even when I did, I wrapped my gifts in kraft paper with gorgeous satin bows and greenery. This year, I am using newspaper. I can't seem to find newspaper that looks the way it should (when did big ugly ads come in and ruin all the wordy pages like the classifieds?) but it is still black and white. (If you can find the NY Times I hear that is a good one esthetically to use. Why do I know that? How odd the random things you pick up from reading blogs!) I am taking it a bit further though this year and making a lot of decorations out of that and bookpaper. I love the look of the text mixed up with the greens and golds... black, white and green have been a long time favourite colour combo.

I have to confess, I think the decision to go with the very intense green in the living room was based on how I thought it should look for Christmas. I could envision a beautiful tree in the corner with the lights reflected in the glossy paint. Not that "tame" is really an option. I love all white interiors, but I don't think I could realistically live in one. My last living room was chartreuse. To balance out the green though, there will have to be a good amount of otherness going on. For the moment, that means paper. So with the kids help, I am building an immense number of paper chains, "balls" and weaves to put on the tree and everywhere else. The newspaper is obviously the inexpensive way to go, but it also looks great. I always have remnants of ribbons around from the sewing I am supposed to be doing, and these particular green ones have been used as streamers at no fewer than three parties, hung from trees at a BBQ, used on other gifts and gathered up afterward and occasionally used in the world of dress up. I am sort of the Queen of Re-use.


I had so much fun making these little paper ball ornaments that I thought I should pass them on. I don't do tutorials often on here, and my pics came out all blurry because I was trying to hold the camera on my knee while holding scissors and push the button and couldn't get it to focus properly. They are not too bad though. You will get the idea. Anyone who can tell me how to push the button on the camera if you are the only one home, don't have a tripod with a clicker thingy (suppose I could use my teeth), or the patience to use the timer option, please feel free to enlighten me :)

You will need:

a book no one will ever read
scissors
embroidery floss or other string type material
hole punch

chop paper
I made strips that were about 3/4" x 6"
do a few pages at a time
I used eight strips per ball, so did
four at a time and cut the strip in half

hold the strips (four at a time if easier to punch)
punch hole in the center at the end

I used a pretty small hole so that the
knots in the floss could be smaller
but I also thought that putting a bead on each of the
top and bottom would work too
and would add some sparkle :)

gently spread the strips out until you have a ball

...and VOILA!