Home-made card balls are attractive and so simple to make. They can be made to any size. Small ones for the Christmas tree or Large ones to decorate a room, they make great alternative to balloons. You can imagine thrifty Victorians making these card balls to decorate their house at Christmas time.

To begin with you will need a triangle and a circle card board template. You can make these from an old cereal box. The triangle needs to be an equilateral triangle.

You will need cardboard, a pair of compass and a ruler to make your triangle. First draw a straight horizontal line to form the base of the triangle. Open the compass so that the point and the pencil ate the same distance apart as the length of the ruled line. Then with the pint of the ruler on one end of the ruled line, lightly draw a curve with the compass. The do the same thing with the point of the compass on the other end of the ruled line. Where the two curves cross is the to point of the triangle. Rule lines from this point to the base of the triangle. Cut the triangle out and place to one side.

To make the circle template, use the compass to draw a circle a few millimetres larger than the than the triangle.

Now using thin coloured card or old Christmas cards, you need to draw and cut out 20 circles using your template so that they are all the same size. You could use the same coloured card, and then paint the ball once it is complete. You could make a photo ball using photos of all the family stuck to pieces of cardboard.

The circles now need to be folded into shape ready for construction. Lay a card circle face up on the table. Place your triangle template on top and hold it down firmly whilst you fold up the sides of your circle around the triangle template, to form a triangle inside the circle. It's a bit like wrapping up presents. Unwrap the triangle, and move on to the next circle. All 20 circles need triangle folds fling inside them.

To construct the ball...
To attach the folded card circles together simply lift the circle sides on two pieces so that it stands up and forms a ridge, the folded triangle side butt up to one another. The ridge is where you staple to join the two triangles. Apply more staples for larger balls if you wish to. Staples are also easily removed if you make a mistake.

Join five triangles together so that it forms a dome shape. Make two more domes, each with five triangles joined together. Then join the 3 domes together.

You may find yourself getting lost at this stage, and you will probably be thinking that it will never work. But it does, just carry on and follow these rules.

Check around your ball. Each triangle has to be part of a dome where five triangles meet. Add the remaining triangles to the places on your ball where there are too few triangles. Eventually you will have used up all of the triangles and your ball will be complete.

Tuck some ribbon for hanging between two joining triangles at the point you would like to be the top of the ball.

Finishing touches...
You could splatter your ball with coloured paint to create a funky design.

You could apply glue to all the stapled ridges and sprinkle on some glitter to really jazz it up.

You could staple tinsel along the ridges of a large ball.

You could make a Christmas room decoration centrepiece mobile. Small card balls suspended at varying lengths from one large card ball, with a cut out of Santa hanging from the centre.

When your really good at making card balls, substitute staples for glue and make a little gift box for sweets, earrings and other trinkets.

These card balls are brilliant fun. Everyone will be amazed at the cleverness of it. Best of all, it's re-cycling at it festive, using old Christmas cards, used cereal boxes, last years odds and ends of gift wrap, tinsel and glitter.