How to make homemade Christmas Crackers

PULL, CRACK and BOING!

This Christmas cracker craft is made from recycled magazines and filled with a homemade garland.

When the cracker is pulled, the garland BOINGS out and is ready to decorate the Christmas tree! So grab your old magazines and let’s create!

What to do:

Grab your old Upstart magazines and find pages that are mostly green or red and tear them out.
Make vertical folds on your magazine page which are about 3cm* across and the length of the page.
Cut along the folds to make strips and then glue the red strips together, end to end. Do the same for the green strips.
You should have a long strip of each colour which is at least double the length of what you want your garland to be.
We recommend it should be no shorter than 1 meter ours was nearly two!
Stick the end of the red strip to the green so that they make a tidy arrow shape. Let the glue dry and then you can start folding.
Keep the strips flat on the table and fold the strip that is glued underneath over the top and press down neatly. Repeat this process of taking the strip which is underneath and folding it over so that it sits on top.
When you have finished, glue the ends together and wait for it to dry.
Once the glue has dried punch a hole in the ends.
Thread string through these holes and tie the string ends together. This should be long enough to poke out of the cracker and needs to be strong so that it doesn’t break when tugged.

Create the cardboard cylinder of your cracker with tape and a recycled cereal box (or you could use an old paper towel or toilet roll!).
Be mindful that this needs to be big enough to fit your folded down garland inside, with the square ends facing out.
Make your Christmas cracker wrapper by gluing your two favourite Christmassy paper or magazine pages together.
Fill your cardboard roll with the garland, making sure the string sticks out the ends and the square garland ends face out.
Wrap the magazines around the cardboard roll and secure with tape.
Pinch in the ends of the cracker, making sure the string is poking out of the ends.
Tie the ends tightly with decorative ties (bendable thin wire garlands work well.)
Finish your cracker decorations by adding a strip of your favourite magazine clipping around the centre and glue it into place covering any tape underneath.
Finish your festive cracker with glitter and leave to dry.