Accordian folded paper medallions are so simple to make, look great, and may just be the answer to your Succah crafting dilemma right about now? I made around fifty of these medallions in a few sizes and colors and they sure came in handy at my son's bar mitzvah, not to mention that I'm about to decorate our succah with them as well, phew! You can make your medallions as simple as can be, as shown here, or glue a circle or flower shape to the center if you desire, there are no rules and so many possibilities! I'm planning to actually sew these to some of the curtain wall panels in our succah, and assuming there isn't any rain, I'll simply cut them off the curtains and save for yet another occasion.
The main thing is to make them in three colors or more and in a bunch of sizes, and them hang them in clusters that look somewhat random. Need a few tips for making them? Keep reading...
You'll Need:
- card stock or even lighter weight peper for large medallions, the large the medallion the more difficult it is to fold thick paper
- a stapler (a long arm one would be ideal, but I don't have one of those yet!), a hot glue gun or even a large needle and thread
- a little window of time to make a bunch!
How To:
For all medallions, the width of your medallions will be the width of the paper. What limits the size of the medallion is really the length of the paper, which is why many people make large medallions from two or more sections. That said, all of my medallions were made from one piece of paper, whose length was roughly three times its width, or even a bit more.
Medallions can look delicate if you make small folds, and bolder if your folds are larger, you decide! Do a test to see what size paper and what size fold gives the best results for you.
After you accordian fold the length of your paper, staple, glue or sew the middle section together. A perpendicular join is preferable, but when using a stapler that can as far as I know only be done with a long arm stapler, so instead I stapled my middle with a staple or two on an angle, and just lived with the less than perfect results as time was of the essence! You can hide any gaps in the center by gluing on a little circle if you wish. I actually used those resulting gaps to thread a ribbon around the center in order to tie my medallions on a framework of sorts.
Sorry that I can't go into this in more detail, but with the Succot holiday fast approaching, with a shabbat in between, time has simply run out! Happy crafting!
