I started my zero waste journey a little over a year ago, but I am not completely ZERO waste (nobody is). So I have been trying to find use for the waste that I am creating. I collected the cardboard tubes from inside toilet paper rolls and started playing around with them.
Actually, when I was 11 I used them to make labyrinths for my hamster (don’t use tape or glue for this as it may harm the hamster. Instead, cut the holes just the right size so the tubes stick together due to friction)
Anyway, I wanted to use the rolls for a Christmas decoration and after fiddling around with them for a while the result was a Christmas star/snowflake. Here are the instructions if you want to give it a try yourself.
You will need:
Two and a half cardboard rolls from inside toilet paper rolls, a pair of scissors and some glue (if you don’t have any glue lying around please consider buying an eco-friendly one).
The 12 steps:
- Press the cardboard rolls flat
- Cut each roll in six equally wide strips. You should end up with 15 pieces (3 from the half toilet roll)
- Take six pieces and arrange them in a flower pattern with a corner of each piece facing the center.
- Glue the pieces together like this
- and use whatever hairpins you have lying around to hold the pieces together while the glue dries.
- Take three other pieces and cut them at the middle so you end up with six v-shaped pieces.
- Bend these pieces the opposite way as shown in the picture below.
- Take one of the v-shaped pieces and one regular piece and cut two incisions in each of them around a centimeter from where they are folded. The length of the incisions should be a little over half the width of the piece.
- Press the two pieces together at the incisions, so they merge together.
- Repeat for the remaining pieces so you end up with six spike-pieces for the star.
- Lastly, glue the six spike-pieces onto the flower shaped piece you made in the beginning and again use hairpins to keep the pieces in place.
- Wait for the glue to dry, remove the hairpins, attach a string, and you are done!
Subscribe to my email list to get notified when I make a new post:
