Linda Raedisch
In Britain, what we call “Christmas lights” are “fairy lights.” The following project is one of several techniques I use for softening the lights to make them more appealing to fairies and other ancestral spirits who might like to visit at this time of year.
Seven-Point Star Reflectors
I once received a Christmas card with a five-pointed origami star stuck to it. Couldn’t figure out how it was made. Then, lo and behold, I saw another one folded from tracing paper in my cousin Astrid’s picture window. Astrid gave me a copy of the wickedly complex instructions. Tears ensued. I have given up on the five-pointed origami star. My 3D seven-pointed star, which looks more like a flower when all is said and done, is easy-peasy. It is not, strictly speaking, origami, because it requires cutting and gluing, but the results are very pretty and you don’t have to worry about spotting the paper with tears.
Since they’re reflectors, I’d originally planned to make these stars with multicolored metallic origami paper. Then I saw how much packs of multicolored metallic origami paper cost these days. Yowzah. I ended up making mine out of plain white paper, which made them look like softly glowing snow flowers. You can also use plain origami paper in a variety of colors or cut your own squares out of metallic wrapping paper. Even if you make them out of newspaper squares, they will still look good. And you don’t have to put them on the tree; you can hang a string of them in the window, on the mantel, or anywhere around the Yuletide house.
Time frittered: Once the paper is cut, each star takes about ten minutes. You’ll need to make thirty.
Cost: About $25.00 if you go for the expensive origami paper, $13.00 or less if you cut your own paper.
Supplies
Origami or other paper (see above) cut into 210 squares no bigger than 1½" and no smaller than 1¼". I know it sounds like a lot, so make some cocoa and get your friends together to help you.
White all-purpose glue*
One 30-bulb light string (the little twinkly ones, not the big old fashioned bulbs)
Position your square of paper like a diamond. Fold in half, tip to tip, into a triangle. Unfold. Fold the two bottom edges of the diamond in to the center crease, colored side out. The result should remind you of a kite. That’s one point. Now make 6 more.
Glue the points together, lining up the upper kite edge of each point with the center crease of the point before it so they overlap as in the picture. When all 7 points are glued, slide the seventh point into place halfway under the first point. This will force the star to become concave. Pop it on to your light bulb. Unless you’ve been overzealous with the glue, a hole will naturally open in the center to let the bulb through.
Continue with the other 29 stars. Happy folding!
Tracing Paper Frost-Ferns
This project is for those of you who don’t live far enough north (or south!) to get frost on the window panes or who are simply impatient for the season to reveal itself in all its wintry glory. In a letter he wrote to J. R. R. Tolkien’s children in 1926, Father Christmas’s sidekick, the North Polar Bear, mentions how their gardener, the Snow Man, can’t get anything but snowdrops and frost-ferns to grow at the North Pole. I have the same problem, even though I live in zone 7.
These are the easiest frost-ferns of all to grow. Spend a few hours folding at your kitchen table and your window panes will soon be as beautiful as Father Christmas’s back garden. (I know some of you don’t really like the word “Christmas,” so just think of him as Grandfather Yule’s son.)
Time frittered: A 16-frond fern takes about 30 minutes. If you find you can’t stop, then there’s no telling how much of your weekend this craft will take up.
Cost: About $10.00. (At this writing, $6.99 buys a 50-sheet pad of tracing paper, but if you use the whole pad, you won’t be able to see out of your windows.)
Supplies
Tracing paper*
White all-purpose glue*
Double-sided or other transparent tape*
Cut a 9" square from a 9" × 12" sheet of tracing paper. (If your paper is smaller, that’s fine. In fact, your ferns will look more delicate, though they’ll be a little trickier to fold.) Fold and cut your square into quarters then fold and cut each of those into quarters. Now you have 16 little squares of paper. This may prove to be more than you need, or you may decide you need twice as many. You’ll see as you go.
Take your first little square and fold it diagonally in half and in half again to make a center point. Unfold. Fold two opposite corners in to the center point. Now fold the top two edges in to the center crease as if you are making a pointy little hood. Fold the whole piece in half lengthwise. This is your first “frond.” Take another little square of paper and fold a second frond. Slide the two fronds together into a “V,” securing them with a tiny dab of glue. Keep folding and gluing until you’ve used up all sixteen.
Use little rolls of tape (or double sided tape) to attach your fronds to the window pane. Start in a lower corner of the window and build your ferns upward and outward in gentle arcs. To look natural, each pair of fronds should “grow” out of the one before it; no free-floating fronds, please! When the sun shines through the layers of folded paper, your ferns will look more complex than they did on your work surface. Your neighbors might even wonder why their own windows are unaffected!