These colorful party decorations are great for any occasion--they can be used for Birthday parties, graduation party, baby showers, going away parties, Christmas or even 4th of July parties. Just change the colors to match the season. They are fairly quick to make, and very inexpensive, since you just fold colored paper. They are great for decorating a large hall to make it look festive. If you do plan to make it for a large space, you may want to get some friends to help make them--although one doesn’t take very long, when you make 50, the time adds up!! The decorations will look more interesting if you make them in 2 or 3 sizes. See how to make them with photos and instructions below.
These half-circle decorations can be used to decorate a small space for a party in the home, or for a large space such as a school or church. The half circle shapes look like cloth buntings which would cost a lot more than these paper ones. Decorate the walls next to the ceiling, as in the photo, or under windows, or above doorways or windows. The large discs are made of tissue paper. See link for instructions below.
Adding a star or other shape to the middle of each disc can make the decorations more interesting. The simple paper stars shown here would look pitiful if they had been fastened to the wall without the discs--much too tiny for the space. You can give that same emphasis to any small decorations, such as those found on napkins or gift bags, that would be much too small to use by themselves for decorations. Simply cut out the shapes and fasten them to the middle of these paper discs. This is especially helpful if you want to have a theme for a birthday party, but can only find designs that would be too small to use as decorations. If you use napkins, cut out the design, then glue it to stiffer paper before mounting on the discs, or it will flop over, and you won’t see the design. Also, be sure to put the glue on the backing paper, not the napkin--if you try to glue the napkin, it will tear the napkin.
view how to make a star pattern
To make a half circle, you only need one sheet of paper. To make a full circle, you will need 2 sheets of paper.
To make a full circle, glue 2 sheets of paper end to end. Make sure they are glued together straight--lay a ruler next to the two sheets to check. (If you are trying to save paper, they can be made with one and a half sheets rather than 2 sheets.)
Fold back and forth in mountain and valley folds (accordion folds) the full length of the 2 sheets.
Fasten the middle with thread or wire.
Pull the sides to make a circle.
Glue one open slit, and paper clip the other open slit. The advantage of using paper clips is for storage (see photo below.)
These discs require quite a bit of storage space if you glue both slits instead of gluing one slit and paper clipping the other slit. Stored in this way, they are also likely to get crumpled.
A much better way to store them is to fold them up, because the same discs take up a much smaller space. Empty cereal boxes make great storage containers for folded discs.
The decorations are more interesting if you have big discs mixed in with small ones. You can make these out of any large sized paper such as wrapping paper or tissue paper, but tissue paper is much harder to work with. See my tips for making large discs:
How to make the fan-shaped party decorations.
Crafts > Crafts for Adults by Materials > Paper Party Decorations > Fan-style Discs
Crafts > Crafts for Adults by Materials > Paper Party Decorations > Fan-style Discs