Crackers!!

I can’t imagine tucking into a Christmas dinner without pulling a cracker first. I love the naff hats, the cringe-worthy jokes (and just the tradition of it all).

Crackers are so easy to make…and if you don’t fancy making some for the table you can make some miniature ones to hang in the tree. They also make really cool gift boxes.

I’ve put some templates together if you wanna try. I initially drew these up for my son because he breaks up from school next week and I wanted to line up a few nice things for him to do. (I’m going to ask him to make one for each of his grandparents for Christmas – I’ll cut out the cracker and he can fill it with drawings, sweets and confetti and decorate the outside…sorted!).

Here’s how:
1) Download the pdf and print onto thin card. There is a large template and a miniature template. (Full size crackers are 25cm long and miniature crackers are 16cm long).
2) Cut around the outside with a pair of scissors.

3) Score along all the dotted lines. Compass points are great for scoring card.
4) Using a craft knife cut out all the diamond shapes.

5) Fold along all the vertical lines.
6) Fold along horizontal lines as shown. At this point you would insert a cracker bang and tape it into place at each end using sticky tape. (I didn’t use any cracker bangs for this post because I didn’t get my act together and order them in time!…If you wanna buy some, have a look on ebay).

7) Bring ends together and join using a glue stick or double sided tape.
8) Tie one end with a length of cotton/ribbon/string*

9) Wrap a gift/sweets/hat/joke/confetti* in some tissue paper
10) Pop inside cracker and tie the other end with cotton/ribbon/string*

* delete where appropriate!!

Job done!!

Hope all your Christmas or Hanukkah crafts/preparations/plans are coming along a treat.