Spirelli

Welcome to the Fiskateers Spring Blog Hop!  If you're hopping along, you should have arrived from Scrap n Patch.  To start from the beginning, go to She's the Crafty Neighbor.

As my regular readers know, I turned 40 last week.  To celebrate, I am trying 40 Things during my 40th Year.  Number 8 on my list was to try spirelli.  Spirelli is a form of string art.  I first learned about spirelli around 15 years ago.  A former coworker always taught her 6th grade students to make beautiful projects with string.  Teacher etiquette says that you do not learn about a fabulous craft from a coworker and teach it to your students who are one year younger than her students, so I filed her instructions away in my "Craft Ideas" folder.  All these years later, I still had never tried it.  Until now!  

Not only did I try spirelli, but I taught it to Trevor.  I wasn't sure if a 5 year old would be able to do it, but he had no problem.  Here are 6 of Trevor's designs.  He's extremely proud of them.

Materials needed: cardstock, a scalloped circle punch (we used Fiskars' Seal of Approval Squeeze Punch), some sort of string (thread, yarn, embroidery floss, etc), tape, and scissors.

Step 1: Punch scalloped circles from cardstock. 

Step 2: Tape one end of the string to the back of the circle, then start winding.  Skipping different numbers of spaces results in completely different designs.  There's no right or wrong.  When you reach your starting space, cut the string and tape the end in place.

 

Step 3: Use your completed spirelli to decorate cards, gift bags, place cards or anything else your heart desires!  Trevor chose to skip this step.  I created four items to showcase my spirelli.   

• A card:

• A gift bag:

 

• A gift box:

 

• A place card:

 

 I love the way different accents on each spirelli design create a totally different feel!  Spirelli is such a quick and easy craft and it adds such a nice touch to many papercraft projects.  I'll be using it often in the future.  I'm so glad I finally tried it after all these years!

To continue along on the Fiskateer Spring Blog hop, go to Ink Blots by TRD.