Your home can be a grotto of crafty delight long after Santa’s left with our fab festive makes

What you need...

• Card: green, pink
  
• Paint, 3-D relief, pearl white
  
• Thread, silver
  
• Gems, silver, self-adhesive
  
• Beads, silver
  
• Punches: hole, wheel; star

instructions

1. Hanging Decoration - 1 Download and photocopy the square pattern onto pink paper. With a sharp craft knife, cut along all the hard edge lines. Glue over the top of green paper, hiding the inked lines between the two colours.
   
   2 Be careful not to squeeze the glue through the pre-cut lines. When dry re-cut all the lines, working through both papers. Starting from the middle, draw the inner most points together and glue together.
   
   3 Top the face and back with a silver self-adhesive gem. Turn over and repeat, working from the inside out until all four points have been joined.
   
   4 Punch a hole at the top, thread through a loop of silver yarn and tie in a knot. Dot pearl white 3-D relief paint along the edges and finish with a silver bead over the silver thread.

2. Classic Lantern - 1 Download the pattern page onto a sheet of pink and green cardstock. Cut out with a sharp craft knife and use a wheel hole punch to make the circles.
   
   2 Score and fold all the dotted lines. Glue the tabs together one at a time, starting from the base upwards. Before sealing the last two, insert a knotted loop of silver thread at the top and adhere into place.
   
   3 Glue and seal the remaining tabs closed. Cut some narrow strips of contrasting paper and glue along the face of each side of the lantern, shaping the ends with scissors and working along all four sides.
   
   4 Make small stars with a punch and stick around the body of the lantern. Top the stars with silver gems, then add detail along the lantern edges with pearl relief paint. Finish with a silver bead over the thread.

3. Table Lantern - 1 Cut green paper, 150cm x 210cm. Score a line along the middle and fold in half, then place it in front of you with the fold at the bottom.
   
   2 Cut lines across the fold at 1cm intervals, leaving an uncut gap of 2.5cm at the top. Open out and join one end to the other with glue, overlapping
   the first 1cm with the last.
   
   3 Cut a rectangle shorter than the lantern, roll into a tube and insert into the middle. Mark with a pencil where the edges overlap. Remove the tube and glue the edges together, using the pencil mark as a guide.
   
   4 Insert the glued tube into the centre of the lantern. One at a time, glue the inner green edges to the pink tube. Add a pink paper handle to the inside, then decorate with relief paint and offcuts of paper.