Cracking Christmas

The Child and I bought some very tasteful silver bon-bons for the Christmas table. We then decided to make our own for a homemade touch. You won't find an eclectic selection like ours at David Jones, unless there's been an explosion in Santa's Cave, which is exactly why we love them.

Here's how to make your own:
1 Cut rectangles of paper 30cm x 20cm.
2 Using a tracing wheel, like those used for tracing over paper sewing patterns (Spotlight have them for a couple of dollars), create a line of small perforated holes about 10cm in from one of the 20cm edges (this is so the paper will tear neatly at an end when pulled rather than exposing the less-than-festive looking loo roll).
3 Glue a bon-bon snap about 1cm from a 30cm edge. Snaps are available in packs of 12 from craft shops. We got ours at Spotlight.
4 Place three emply toilet rolls lengthways on paper and roll tightly before using craft glue to seal edge.
5 Only the middle roll will stay inside, the outer two are just being used to shape the cracker. By pulling the outer two out a couple of cms and gently pushing back and forth, you'll scrunch the paper down so that ribbons can be tied to seal off the contents. Tie a ribbon only at one end for now and remove the roll.
6 Add chocolates, hats, jokes, Christmas confetti whatever you like (the Child wrote the jokes for ours and we left out the hats).
7 Remove remaining end roll and tie off.
8 Decorate to heart's content - or to the point of a coronary like we did.

Tip: Keep to a few colours for best results. The only reining in I did of the Child was to ask her to stay within a red/white/natural palette.