How to make a Christmas Parol

Let's face it, I'm not really talented with arts and crafts nor do I have any interest in making them.  But sometimes, for the sake of your children you have to do things that you just gotta do hehehe  One of these things include making a Christmas Parol for Dylan's project in school.  It's supposed to be a bonding moment type of project, which I adamantly opposed during a PTA meeting because I knew Dylan wouldn't be participating in it (really!), but I was overruled hehehe  So, I was wracking my brains figuring out how to make one and even resorted to searching through youtube for instructional videos on how to make it.

The first step is finding the materials before you can even begin.  For this project, we were told to use native materials like coconut and corn husks and not recyclable materials (which we used last year).  I really had no idea how to begin so I asked my aunt for suggestions.  She told me to head over to Quiapo's Quinta Market and maybe I'll find inspiration there.  It just so happened that I had a lot of work to finish so I asked Den and Erghie to just buy the materials which they think may be suitable and we'll go from there.  When they got back, they were able to buy a Christmas parol frame (let's be honest, I can never make that one by myself hehehe) and some native materials.  It took us a week to really think about how to put the materials together LOL

Step 1:  We covered the inner frame with some red ribbon so it won't stand out.  Obviously, Dylan is more interested in playing with the ribbons rather than looping them around the frame :)

Step 2:  We used a glue gun to stick the "abaca" (I'm not really sure what the material is but it looked native) onto the "triangle" portions of the frame.  Dylan tried his hand with the glue gun.  At first, he was skeptical when he learned that it was a glue "gun".  He said, Mama don't kill me with that gun LOL

Untrimmed frame

Trimmed Frame

Step 3:  We put in a green native material to contrast with the brown, right in the middle of the frame just to keep things simple.  Then lined the edges with glittery red ribbon.  At first, we even ran out of the ribbon so we had to continue the next day.  We also ran out of glue sticks which meant another delay.

Step 4:  We glued some shells on strings and attached them to the bottom of the frame so that they'll swing.  We didn't know how to make the usual fringes in the regular Filipino Christmas parol so we "innovated" hehehe  We also wrapped some gold ribbon around the "points" of the star to conceal the points of the frame.

Almost finished product

Step 5:  The kids then proceeded to stick the sea shells onto the outline of the center of the star.  They each took turns and we finished in no time :)  The parol is now hanging from the middle of our living room hahaha Dylan has also gone territorial on it and keeps calling it His Star :)

Finished product