Hi, everyone! Cynthia Silveri here! I've always thought it would be really fun to be in New York
City on New Year's eve, but I've never done it. All these years I have watched
it on TV, but watching the ball drop in person would be pretty awesome! Inspired by that big silver ball, I created
the Drop Your Own New Year Ball Garland. This garland design is understated and modern, and easy to make-perfect
for a new year celebration. (And you might have just enough post Christmas Day
time to make one before the year ends.) I hope you enjoy this project, and I
wish everyone a wonderful, art-filled New Year!
Materials:
8 (or more) sheets of black cardstock
8 (or more) sheets of white cardstock
StencilGirl® Products used:
Feel free to use your favorite stencils for this project, keeping mind that all
over patterns on 9” x 12” stencils will work best.
Ironlack Sugar acrylic spray paint in Fads (white-grey), Giggles (dark blue) and
Liquorice (black) Or you can use regular acrylic paints in any color you like.
Sizzix die-cut machine and circle Frame lits in 4 sizes (4”,
3.5”, 2.5” and 2”).
Sewing maching and heavy duty needle and thread
Optional: Marvy Uchida DecoColor Paint Pens in silver and gold & Marvy Uchida Just Glitter Markers in silver and gold
Note: You may not use every circle to create the balls. Depending on the thickness of the cardstock you may use 5 or 6 per ball. The garland I made has 20 balls and is approximately six feet long.
Instructions:
1.
Stencil both sides of each piece of cardstock. I
used black and blue Sugar Spray on the white cardstock, and the white-grey on
the black cardstock.
2.
After the papers are completely dry, use your
die-cut machine to cut out the circles. Fold the paper in half lengthwise to be
able to cut the two largest sizes of circles-or 4 total. Use the remaining part
of the paper to cut the 2.5” smaller circle (getting 2 circles from it). Use the
remaining scrap by folding the paper open to cut out the smallest circle (to
get 2 more from one sheet). Thus, you get a total of 8 circles from one sheet
of cardstock. It will take a little bit of time to cut them all out.
3.
I originally intended to edge each circle with
gold and silver markers so the garland would appear really festive and shiny,
but I after decorating enough circles to make three “balls”, I realized that it
was going to take too long to do this on 128 circles...and then double that to
do back and front...I would not be able meet my deadline for this blog post!
You can see in the video what the three decorated balls look like. If you had a
group of people making this garland together, everyone could decorate 2 or 3,
and you'd have your fabulous shiny garland in a jiffy. Or maybe you have more
time and patience than I did to complete all 128 circles!
4.
Next make stacks of each size circle and then
count out 6 of each size to sew together-with one caveat...I learned the hard
way that the black cardstock I had was too thick to sew 6 layers together, but
5 layers worked on my machine. The white cardstock I had was thinner, so it was
not a problem to sew a stack of six layers. You may have to test this on your
machine before you can really get sewing!
5.
Lay out the different size circle stacks,
alternating the black and white ones, to create a pattern you like before
sewing them. Make sure you can reach all of the circle stacks from your sewing
machine because you are going to sew continuously-do not break the thread
between each stack of circles. Be sure to sew a bit beyond each stack before
placing the next stack at the presser foot. There should be about 3/8” to 1/2”
of thread between each stack of circles. Leave a good long tail of thread at the
beginning and end of your garland, or alternatively, you could hot glue a
ribbon onto each end for hanging.
6.
Once everything is sewn, it takes a bit of
patience and time to open up each circle stack to create the “ball”. Crease the
stack back and forth along the stitching line, and then as you open it up to
create a “ball” you may have to crease each individual paper half. The ball
will not be perfectly round as it is difficult to make each part stay open the
same distance apart, but it will still look great!
7.
Hang where you and your party peeps can
enjoy...Happy New Year!
This is a really attractive garland, Cynthia. It really shows the attraction of black & white. Thanks for sharing your method!
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