Make a Christmas bauble

Making your own Christmas bauble is simpler than you think, and once you've mastered the basic ball with this step-by-step guide from Decorations to Dazzle, you can really go to town with your own creative ideas.

You will need

- 7cm polystyrene ball
- 2 pieces of fabric 15 x 25cm (6"x10")
- 50cm (20") 3mm lamé ribbon
- 1m (39") x 3mm facetted beaded trim
- sequin & bead pins
- Top finding
- Corsage pin
- 12mm bead
- craft knife or scalpel
- scissors
- mattress needle or knitting needle
- embossing tool, round bladed butter knife, thin nail file

The most suitable fabrics are sequin dot, velours or soft malleable microdots. The fabrics to avoid are anything that frays. It is also easier if you choose two fabrics with contrasting textures. Good combinations are velour + sequin dot or microdot, microdot + sequin dot.

Excerpted from Decorations to Dazzle by Sue Schofield, priced £10.95, published by Springwood House Designs and Viking Loom Ltd.
Step 1

Start by marking to top and bottom of the ball with a biro dot. You will notice the manufacturer's line running around the middle.
Step 2

Attach the end of the piece of narrow ribbon at the top with a pin. Wrap the ribbon around the ball, temporarily pinning it again at the bottom. The ball is now divided into two. Run the biro lightly alongside the ribbon. Move the ribbon around the ball, dividing it into quarters and then eighths. (see right)

Step 3

Using a craft knife or scalpel with a thin blade, cut into the polystyrene ball to a depth of about 1.5cm or ½" along your biro marked lines.

Step 4

Stand the ball on its bottom and using a long mattress needle (or knitting needle) drive it straight through. With luck this should come out exactly where you want it to. If you are only a little out it will not matter. If you are way out do it again.
Step 5

Fold the piece of ribbon in half. Thread the folded part through the eye of the needle. Pull the needle and ribbon through the ball (left).

Remove the needle. Decide how big a loop you want at the top and then knot the ends of the ribbon twice, making a knot that is so big that it will not disappear up inside the ball.

Trim off the ends and pull the knot up flush against the base of the ball. This will be covered up by the beaded trim later.

Pin the loop flat against the ball so that it does not get cut off by mistake. (right)
Step 6

Start with the thinnest, softest fabric e.g. microdot foil. Fold the rectangle in half so that the shorter sides are together and then fold in half again and cut along the folds. You now have 4 rectangles of fabric.

Step 7

Lay a piece of fabric over one of the segments. Starting at the widest point, the middle, and using an embossing tool, a thin nail file tip or the corner of a plastic credit or loyalty card, push the fabric into the crack (see right).

Do this all round the segment. Check that the fabric has not come away and cut off the excess fabric.

Push all the fabric edges well down into the cracks so that the fabric lies smoothly. Leave the next segment blank and continue using the same fabric to do segments 3, 5 and 7.
Step 8

Proceed with the second fabric in exactly the same way.

Step 9

Take the beading and pin it securely at the top. Use small sequin and bead pins that match the colour of your beaded trim.

Lay the beading over the joins and pin it again 0.5cm or ¼" from the bottom. As it is extremely difficult to pierce the beading I cross two pins over each other, trapping the beading (see right).

Continue around the segments securing the beading top and bottom.
Step 10

To finish place a gold bead on to a gold (or silver) headed corsage pin and push it into the base of the ball.

Step 11

To finish the top, push the narrow ribbon loop through the small hole in the top of the finding. This is easy to do using an embossing tool, tip of pencil or blunt end of a needle. To secure the finding to the top of the ball use a plain pin with a bead big enough to keep the finding in place or a corsage pin or use a few sequin pins around the base of the finding.

You're finished!

Christmas gift guide
Next Up: Christmas dinner timetable
It's probably the biggest meal you'll cook all year, and it's all too easy to get completely stressed out.