Deck your halls, mantel, and tree with this beautiful homemade paper chain. We are taking a kindergarten craft and turning it into chic holiday decor using leftover wallpaper and colored craft paper.
Course Home Decor Craft
Cuisine American
Keyword christmas, diy, holiday, paper chain
Cook Time 1 hourhour
Ingredients
leftover wallpaper
colored craft paper
glue stick
paper cutter or rotary cutter, clear ruler, and cutting mat
Begin by gluing your colored paper to the back of your wallpaper. Use a glue stick to apply glue to the back of the colored paper and then place it onto the back of the wallpaper. (Top the glued sheets with a few books to keep the two pieces together while drying.)
Next, you'll want to cut strips out of your paper. My strips were roughly 8.5 inches long by 1 inch wide. You can do this using a paper cutter like THIS one. Another option would be to use a rotary cutter, clear ruler, and cutting mat like THIS one.*
With your strips cut, you're ready to assemble. Apply hot glue to the end of one strip on the wallpaper side. Use the tip of the glue gun to spread out the glue to cover about 1/2 inch. Bend the paper over, with the wallpaper on the outside, to create a ring by attaching the two ends together where you placed the hot glue. Hold for a few seconds to let the glue set.
Next, add a second ring by threading a new strip of paper through the center of the previous loop. Again, add hot glue to the end of the new strip, then bend the paper and attach the ends together to create another ring. The loops will sit perpendicular to each other creating the look of a chain.
(As you can see I used two different colored craft papers for my backing paper. As I created my loops I worked in alternating colors.)
Continue repeating this process until your paper chain is the desired length.
That's it! Hang and enjoy your handiwork.
Notes
*I opted for the rotary cutter, clear ruler, and cutting mat. For whatever reason, it didn't occur to me to use a paper cutter until I was halfway through the project. If you opt to use a paper cutter, you may need an extra blade or two as this is thick paper.