Posted by Rosie Lopez
on September 11, 2025
Welcome back to Clever Crafts! This series is all about thinking outside the box and making the most of what you have—pairing your Hero Arts products with creative (and maybe unexpected!) materials from around the house. Whether you're stretching your stash or looking for fresh ideas, we’re here to turn limitations into inspiration—one clever idea at a time.
Hello Crafters! It's Rosie and I am back with another cleaver craft. My local downtown small business association asked me to make some awards for their Halloween window decorating contest. As I made them, I thought they might be the perfect door or wall decor for your home or office as well.
To make these large paper award ribbons I used 4 sheets of cardstock in one color and then one sheet of an accent color. I used 3 sheets to make the paper rosettes. I took a full sheet of 8.5" x 11" cardstock and scored it at 1", 3", 5", and 7". Then I flipped it over and scored it at 2", 4", 6" and 8". Then I took that to my paper trimmer and cut it in half at 5.5". I repeated for the other two sheets of cardstock. This left me with 6 zigzag folded sections that had 1" folds and 1/2" leftover. I glued the 1/2" tail to the one inch section of another piece. This gave me one continuous zigzag cardstock that was 5.5" wide. I glued the ends together to make a circle.
While that dried, I preheated my hot glue gun and cut some 3" circles from recycled tagboard. Once the glue gun was hot, I pressed one side of my rosette to the center. I didn’t force anything, just gathered one side until I could lay it flat on my desk. I held it down with one hand while I added a good amount of hot glue to the recycled circle and attached to the center of the rosette. I gave it a few seconds to cool and set. Then I flipped it over and did the same on the backside. This holds the rosette together so don’t skimp on the hot glue here.
Then I took the last sheet of cardstock and cut two pieces measuring 3" x 11". I trimmed off the ends to make tails. And then glued those two to the back so they hang down.
Now that the base was done I could decorate it. I used the Circle Infinity Dies and die cut two of the largest circles with the accent cardstock.
Then for the fun part, I dug through all my Halloween themed products and die cut lots of accents. The themes I was given were Scariest, Cute, Magical and Funny. I chose bats and knives for scary, witches hat for cute, the crystal ball for magical and ghosts for funny. You could really get creative here but I was working within the themes.
I glued the accent circle right over the recycled material and then added all my creative accents.
I hope you give this cleaver craft a try, you probably already have all the materials. I am off to make one for every holiday!
Happy Crafting!
