Recycle, Recycle, Recycle

Today it's my turn to do the post at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog and it's all about recycling magazines to make gift toppers.  I've shared 3 tutorials that I found on the Winter-Wonder-Web - check out my post here - and I also linked from there back to here because I've adapted the Paper Pom Pom tutorial from Nice Package that I shared, as I didn't have the necessary ribbon punch.  I experimented with the same 1½" circles to see if it would work and made my prototypes:

And here's one topping off a gift!

Then I tried it out with a heart shaped punch - using the title panel of old "Which?" magazines that I was clearing out.  I've used 7 punched shapes for each pom-pom plus an extra, slightly thicker one punched from a glossy magazine cover (or scrap card would do too).

Fold each of the seven shapes in half vertically, score the fold line and glue them together to form a stack.

At this point (unless you are a whole lot more careful than me) it might be worth inking the edges of your stack of shapes, as well as the spare base piece, so that the edges are uniformly coloured and no annoying white bits are showing.

Finally sandwich the centre of a length of ribbon between the opened pom-pom and the base shape - you are now ready to gift wrap.

Alternatively, if you are making toppers in advance of your gift-wrapping, adhere the opened pom-pom to the base shape and attach to your parcel with a glue dot or strip of double-sided tape when you are ready.

If you don't have a heart or circle punch I'm sure it would work for any symmetrical shape - even a hand-cut one.  If you give it a go please let me know what shapes work for you.