Crafty Secrets December Guest Designer

Hi friends!

Hope everyone is having a cheery holiday season and is snuggled in for for some December crafting and holiday merriment! I've been asked by Sandy Redburn at Crafty Secrets to be a guest designer for her for the month of December, so I'll be posting some fun inspiration and projects this month and am contemplating blogging occasionally again! So put me on your favorites list and stop back for some tutorials and merriment!

A few weeks ago I had met a friend at Archivers and they showed us how to make some cool pinwheel medallions with a scor-pal. My inspiration fires were LIT and I came home and started making medallions like a crazy-girl. I decided to do a tutorial for you, since a lot of the projects I've done for December involve the medallions in varying sizes.

Sandy had sent me a few sheets of her Christmas images, so I decided I'd make a medallion banner for her to hang in the booth. I cut them all up, matted them with red paper and glittered the edges. I also added some homemade transparency snowflakes all over to make them snowy and festive. (I'll be showing you how to do the snowflakes in an upcoming post).

Each medallion has it's own little unique doo-dads (technical term) attached, but I kept them simple so I could crank out a bunch at once. Try one yourself at home...I think you'll find tons of uses for them! Here's how to make them!

For the larger pinwheels, I used a 6 x 12 sheet of paper. Lay it on the scor-pal and score lines all the way down at 1/2 inch intervals. To add the little border strip of paper, I added a 1 inch strip to the center of the paper before scoring.

After scoring, cut the paper in half, cutting directly down the center of the paper. You will end up with (2) 3" strips. Then fold the strips at the scores, to make accordian strips.

Hot glue the tails together on both ends. Helpful hint: fold one strip with the tail end facing up, and one with the tail end facing down, so that they clasp together.

You will end up with accordian circles that look like this.

Now press down on the center of the circle forming sort of a 'jello mold' shape. The circle will pop all the way down when you press down on it.

Now gather the loop together tightly, and put hot glue in the center of the medallion. Hold it together while the glue dries. (Do this on a craft mat so you don't ruin your table with hot glue!)

Try experimenting with different size strips...I used 3", 2" and 1.5 inch medallions for my banner. Stop back soon, as I'll have more projects to show you and ways to use these fun little decorations!!!! They are so EASY!!!