Faux patchwork christmas baubles

Hello there darlings and loved ones. Today I bring you a bit of christmasey DIY. I did not ever intended to create something like this, be...

Hello there darlings and loved ones.

Today I bring you a bit of christmasey DIY. I did not ever intended to create something like this, because well I found the idea of pinning pieces of ribbon into a styrofoam ball kind of silly, but once I started I could not stop. So here I have a photo - step by step manual in case you wanted to give this a try for a kind of cheaper christmas gift or decoration.



My sister's son will have a Christmas bazaar in school and they had to bring in something to sell for charity. So my sister decided to get into these Christmas decorations. You know I am one of the types that would bake something nice, like a gingerbread house, or some baked decorations, not try to create something that takes this much of time. Creating these takes a lot of time but once you get it into your hand (literally as much as figuratively thanks to the pins) it will go a bit quicker.

So to start you will need styrofoam ball, load of pins and multiple colourful ribbons cut into small 5 cm wide pieces. These will be folded into small triangles and pinned onto the ball. It is great to create a paper pattern that is 5 cm wide to ease down the cutting process. If you use small ball you will need at least 3 different colours for this pattern, bigger ball takes minimally 4 different ribbons.


First ribbon that you will use will create the top of the ball. You will need 4 pieces from the first ribbon. Once you have 4 pieces take your ball and find the center of the half ball. This is where we start the process. I pinned a pin into the center in the picture bellow just for the picture purposes, but if it is hard to find the center, you can use a pin as a marker. It is also great to put the ball inside a small cup so that it won't start rolling around.

Lay the center of the first ribbon piece next to the center of the ball, in a way that it is touching the center, or laying over the half of the center hole, if you pinned it before and pin the top of the ribbon down.


Then take the top corners of the ribbon (top meaning the side where the pin is pinned) and turn them down to the lower middle of the center. The bent fabric that you turn over the bottom layer will come on top and hide the pin. The pin will be located in the top corner of the triangle and covered by the fabric that you bent over. Do this process one corner after other pinning each corner in place properly before moving on to the next one.


Take second piece of ribbon and put it across the ball right opposite to the first one. The top pins should be right next to each other and the middles of the triangles should create a line. Bend the top corners of the ribbon downward and pin in the down middle of the ribbon.


Here you can see how the two pieces create a line together as they are matched opposite to each other.


Next step is to put the third ribbon piece in between these two. I used the line that the previous two created and located the ribbon in a way that it is aligned with the center of the created line and centered with the middle of the ribbon to the center of the ball.


I then pinned it down and repeated the process with the fourth one creating a cross on the top center of the ball.


Last step I did was to pin down the outer edge of the triangles making sure that the sides are touching and none of the ball is showing. With some ribbons you can not match them perfectly and there are tiny openings in between the triangles. These will be pinned down in the next steps so don't worry too much about them.


For the next rows of ribbon you need 8 pieces. Start with 4 of them and pin the 4 triangles matching the four that are already pinned on the ball. Meaning, you repeat the orientation of the triangles, and match the middle line of the new triangle to the middle line of the first one, only moving the second one a bit lower on the ball so that the top one is showing.


The next four pieces go to the joins where the sides of the triangles are touching. This is the place to clear out any imperfections and sorting out the sides matching by pinning the triangle that is in the next row. Also while pinning this half of the row make sure that none of the bottom triangle sides from the row above are showing. Also that none of the pins are showing. Basically you want to hide the unpretty, pinned down sides of the triangles.


Here is a picture of the two rows done. Also I love this colour combination!


With the next row you repeat the process from the second row. So first pin along the middle lines of the first triangles, just a tiny bit lower and then pin along the touching sides. If you have a small ball and only three rows of ribbons you should make sure that the ribbons are spaced out so that this last row is touching the half line of the ball.


Here is a picture of the first half done. Again I love this colour combination, Also if your fingers hurt by this time, try to find better pins. But my finger are still aching so don't worry it will get worse even with the best pins. Try using something sharp and flat to push the pins down so that they are not pushing against your bare fingers. I use ine of those three sided big pencils that I found laying around.


After the first half repeat the process, and probably also the colours on the other half.


It is also great to mark the lines that the triangles created on the first half so that you can be sure that the lines will match properly once they are connected at the half line of the ball.


Once you get with your last row to the middle line, try to create the rectangles as neat and as close together as possible. Also make sure that the pins that go along the meeting of the two halves are in kind of a line. These will be hidden under a narrow ribbon.


Last step is to place the ribbon on the meeting line and hide all those pins and raw edges. If you are worried of the ribbon sliding away and showing your pins you have two options. You can either pin it down with some fancy pins or maybe with some stars, or you can pin down the ribbon with your standard pins securely and then put another layer of the same ribbon on top of the first one. This way there will be no pins visible and if the top layer of ribbon slides away nothing will show. Also don't forget to create a holder for the ball from the ribbon before cutting it to length if you want to hang it on your tree or somewhere.



And that is your ball done. Hope you enjoyed your tutorial and I hope you try this out if you were wondering how it is done. It was actually a great way to just stop thinking and relax for a while, and that was a great thing after a really exhausting work week I had.

Don't think binary.
Whitelilit

P.S. Also these photos were taken on my mobile phone. I really enjoy the quality of them, the look awesome!

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