Thursday, May 16, 2013

Party // Hexagon Paper Fans

This month we'll be celebrating my oldest son's seventh birthday. He loves sports so we're throwing him a soccer party. He's not into any characters or movies these days and shrugged when I bugged him for input, so I decided to draw inspiration from the humble and wonderfully geometric soccer ball. Not a bad theme actually-- black, white and hexagons would work for many non-kid, non-soccer parties as well.

Since paper medallions (aka paper fans) are a big bang-for-your-buck party staple, I wanted to see if I could come up with something in a hexagon shape.

After a little trial and error, I figured out a way to make Hexagon-shaped Paper Medallions.


Click "Read more" for the tutorial

Hexagon Paper Fans


materials needed:
six 8 x 11 sheets of cardstock
hexagon fan template*
scoring board
scissors
hot glue gun

*This pattern will make a hexagon medallion that measures 10-inches wide and 2-inches thick.

Score your paper down the center (at the 5.5 inch mark).
Fold the paper in half.

Print the template. Line up the straight edge of the template to the bottom fold of your paper. Cut the angled pattern (the open side of your folded paper).


Open up your paper and align it to the edge of the scoring board. Score one side of the paper at the 2-inch and 6-inch mark.

Turn over your paper and score it at the 4-inch mark.


Fold paper on the scored lines.

Then fold in half. With the edges held together, it should resemble a triangle.


Put a line of hot glue on the edge of the inner fold.

Press together and you'll have one part of the hexagon-- one-sixth to be exact. Repeat the steps above five more times. To cut down on time, I streamlined the process and did all my cutting, scoring, folding, etc. at one time before moving on to the next step.

Using a hot glue gun, glue the six triangles together to form a hexagon. 

Use the hot glue gun to glue down any loose edges and secure the center.  I also added a small hexagon to adorn the center of the medallion.

A side view...

note: To get a smaller 7-inch hexagon medallion, shrink the pattern to 75% in a copier machine. The scoring lines will be at 1.5, 3 and 4.5 inches.