Making your own new year’s bell decoration

The event of New Year’s Eve is among the popular celebrations for many of us. Parties and get-togethers are the usual events that happen during the time of New Year’s Eve. Instead of decorating your house with balloons and colorful paper garland, add this simple and fun craft to your decoration directory. You can make bell decoration made from a Styrofoam cup or paper. Here’s how to make it;

Materials and tools you need:
Styrofoam cup or paper, tape, aluminum foil, pen or pencil, 2 pipe cleaners or chenille stem, small jingle bell.

Making it:
First, make a small hole in the middle of the bottom of the cup by using a pen or pencil. Then, cover the outside of the cup with a piece of foil and hang over the top and the bottom about 1 inch. Carefully wrap the foil around the cup and secure it with tape in place. The reason why tape is used is because it will be much easier to handle with these materials. The normal glue will give you hard time to dry up with these materials.

When you have finished covering and taping the foil around the cup in place, fold neatly the foil that hangs over the top of the side of the cup inside and secure it in place with some tape. Let the extra foil hanging over the bottom side of the cup alone for a while.

Next, string in the pipe clenear or chenille stem through the jingle bell by sliding it to the middle and fold the pipe cleaners in half. Now, put the pipe cleaner inside the cup and poke the end of it through the hole you made earlier. Next, slowly pull the ends of the pipe cleaner through the hole. Pull the string until the jingle bell is at least 1 inch from the edge of the inside of the cup.

Then, fold another pipe cleaner in half. To attach the pipe cleaners together, wrap the two ends together. The wrapped pieces should be flattened down as close as you can get to the bottom of the cup. Secure them in place with tape. After that, fold the foil by hanging over the bottom of the cup down to cover the wrapped pieces of pipe cleaner. Secure again in place with tape.

Finally, you can decorate your bell with any decoration such as stickers, ribbons, glitters or any suitable decorations you can think of. Let your imagination and creativity guide you throughout this project. You can also use any gold and silver metallic wrapping or any colors you like instead of using foil wrapper.

Additional Reading:
http://familycrafts.about.com/cs/independenceday/a/blbellcr1.htm

Image Credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/chubbychandru/3131032075/