Inspired Christmas decoration using recycled materials!

...Is another man's Christmas decoration!

This year we’ve had a competition in the office to see who can make the best Christmas decoration, using recycled materials wherever possible. Entries have ranged from scrunched-paper baubles, coffee pod bells, advent calendar cubes and toilet roll angels. The three winning entries were: a magazine angel, a cork Rudolf and a fishing penguin. In a Christmassy twist, this week’s blog is a bit of a “how to” on making our winning decorations. Tweet us your own @PaperRound and we’ll retweet the best!

First up, a fishing penguin:

Things you’ll need:

• An old CD
• Black Card
• Yellow Paper (we used an old post-it)
• White paint (we used old Tipp-Ex)
• String
• Glue
• White paper

1. Cut out an oblong of black cardboard. Snip slits of about half a centimetre along one of the long edges (these will help to stick it to the CD later)
2. Make a cone out of the cardboard and fold the slits outwards to stick onto the CD
3. Make two isosceles triangles from the white paper and attach to the penguin’s body to form wings
4. Fold your yellow paper into an equilateral triangle and stick on to make the beak
5. Using your white paint, colour in a tummy and eyes
6. Make a small hole in one of the wings and tie the string through
7. Cut out a small fish and tie to the other end of the string
8. Stick your penguin to the CD letting the string go through the middle
9. Voila – you have a fishing penguin

Next was a cork Rudolf:

Things you’ll need:

• 2 and a half corks
• A bell
• A ribbon
• Two pieces of twine
• Cotton wool
• A black felt tip pen
• Glue

1. Carefully cut one of your corks in half width ways then cut the two pieces in half again length ways (These will be the legs of your reindeer)
2. Glue the four legs onto one of the whole corks
3. Glue the half cork ok top of this (This will be the head)
4. Cut out two semi-circles of ribbon and glue them and the twine to the back of the head (these will be the ears and antlers)
5. Roll the cotton wool into two small balls and glue on. Put a black dot in the middle of each
6. Glue the bell to the front of the head (we used old nail varnish to make it red)
7. Tie the rest of your ribbon around the neck and then tie the two ends together to hang up your new reindeer

Last but not least, an angel.

Things you’ll need:

• Ribbon
• Magazine
• A bead
• Sellotape
• Paper clip
• Coloured cardboard
• Glitter glue (Optional)

1. Carefully choose two magazine pages – they’ll need to be two colours that you like and that go well together
2. If you'd like to add glitter to the body, put it on the body piece now.
3. Open out a paperclip and stick it to the inside of the body piece. Roll into a cone to make the body
4. Cut out two wings, from your other magazine page, and stick them onto the body
5. Thread the bead onto the paper clip and attach to the ribbon
6. Tape two small pieces of card to the bottom to create the feet
7. Hang your angel on the tree