DIY Christmas Paper Chains

From my childhood I vividly recall cutting paper chains for Christmas. We would cut free shapes, and just see what they turned out as. Usually we’d try to make Boys and Girls. The trick is to have your shapes connect on the sides, and for a more sturdy paper chain, they should connect in two spots on each side.

Create a few easy last minute Christmas Paper Chains, with my ready to go printables:

Santa’s Reindeer

Snowman

Nisse (Norwegian elf)

I made these 3 different variations, using (again!) my absolute favorite antique texture from Karen’s (The Graphics Fairy) never-endig vault of treasures. I also made a seamless tile with the Faux Snow font and made it transparent, so it will layer on top of anything:

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Print your chosen design on A4 paper
2. Score on the vertical white lines
3. Cut around the strips, and cut the two strips apart on the horizontal white line
4. Accordion fold both strips
5. Cut out the details of your paper chain, through all 4(5) layers of paper
6. Glue the two chains together on the glue tabs
7. Use the second set of glue tabs if you want your chain to form a circle, if not cut those away

Since you will be cutting 4 or 5 layers of paper at once for these, I recommend not choosing too thick paper. I used matte photo paper for mine, and that is probably the thickest you should go, I think it is 170g. I belive 120g paper would be optimal for these, but I did not have any on hand… If you go thinnner that that, your figures could start bending. Not a problem if you want to hang your chains, though, only if you want them to stand like mine 😉

If you make the chains to hang, you can repeat as many times as you want, and also cut away the little platform the figures are standing on 😉

High quality print files of all 3 designs can be downloaded here:

These files are free for your personal use and enjoyment 😀

I have used the following elements for these designs:

Texture – The Graphics Fairy

Faux Snow font – dafont.com

1942 Report font – dafont.com

PS Did you like the XL Robin tags I decorated my media centre with? I just printed the individual tags as large as possible on A4-size paper, glued them to some old pizzaboxes with mod podge and cut them out when dry 🙂 Find them here: