My favorite part of these unicorns is the shiny gold glitter on the horns. Gold glitter is so freaking pretty! But man does it make clean-up awful. My apologies in advance if you decide to make these with the gold glitter. But be warned. You will find glitter EVERYWHERE for days.
My best advice, when you use glitter, is to lay down a large sheet of paper, like newsprint or tracing paper. That way you can catch the extra gold glitter. If you want to return unused glitter back into the bottle, scoop it up with a small piece of paper and pour it back in. You can use a paintbrush to push some of the glitter onto your piece of paper. But be careful you don’t knock over your glitter bottle. I’ve done it a few times and it makes you want to rip your hair out.
Ok enough about glitter. So pretty but so evil, the end.
Visit our SVG Files Shop to get the two Unicorn designs we offer. If you already have a unicorn design in your library, this tutorial will probably work with it. You’ll just have to play around with where to tie the string to get the best balance.
Materials:
Cutting Machine
Cardstock Paper
Gold Glitter
Bone Folder Tool
Ruler
Double Sided Tape with Lining
Clear String
Just one note about the bone folder. I include it here because it’s what I like to use to make the fold line for the unicorn wings. If you’ve never used a bone folder, you basically use it with a ruler like you’re drawing a line. Here’s an example I did with my dragons:
If you are using my unicorn files you’ll notice that I included a dotted line in the cut file which will be your fold line and allow you to skip the bone folder. I just prefer to use the bone folder for my Etsy customers because it looks neater. Below is an example of a fold line done with a bone folder. As I’ve mentioned in my other posts, you can also use a butter knife or even a metal knitting needle.
Here’s the unicorn tutorial…
Step 1: Cut unicorns
Cut two unicorns (of the same design) with your cutting machine. You will get a smoother cut with a machine, but if you’re feeling ambitious and you’re a ninja with an x-acto knife you can try hand-cutting these.
The hanging notch I use to hang the unicorns is included in my files, however it takes an extra step to attach it. So if you’d rather skip this next step you can probably find a spot in the unicorn’s mane to tie the string. The difference is your unicorn will hang more vertically than what you see in my images. I like to use the hanging notch for my Etsy customers because it hides the string between the wings and the unicorns hang more horizontally.
Step 2: Attach hanging notch (skip this step if you prefer to attach your string elsewhere on the unicorn)
Place the hanging notch about 1 inch away from the left wing edge of one unicorn cut-out (this instruction is included in the PDF of my file package). Make sure the circular part of the notch, where you will tie your string, is sitting above the fold line of the wing. Then secure it in place with a piece of double-sided tape.
Step 3: Align second unicorn cut-out on top
Place second cut-out on top and align with the bottom one.
Step 4: Remove double-sided tape lining
Once you have the unicorns aligned, hold them both firmly down on one side and on the other side lift the top unicorn up to expose the tape. With an x-acto knife or any sharp object, peel off and remove the tape lining. Make sure you are still holding the top unicorn in place.
Once the tape lining is removed, press the top unicorn down.
Step 5: Glue unicorn cut-outs together
Now that you have the two unicorn cut-outs attached to each other, you need to attach the rest of the unicorn. Plain white glue works well because it dries fast.
Since your unicorn is attached by the tape, lift up one side of the top unicorn and apply glue to the bottom unicorn. Then press down the top unicorn. It’s best to do this to half the unicorn, then flip it over and do the other half. Once you have the whole unicorn glued together you can put it between two sheets of waxed paper and place it under some heavy books. This will help it to dry flat.
Step 6: Apply glitter to the horn
Here’s the fun part! Apply glue to your unicorn’s horn, making sure to cover both sides and the thin edges. Here you might be tempted to dip the horn into the glitter bottle, and if you applied a thin enough layer of glue this might work, but when I did this the glitter pushed the glue into clumps. If you pour the glitter onto the glue area you’ll get a more even distribution. You’ll just have more glitter clean-up to do. And we all LOVE cleaning up glitter.
Step 7: Open unicorn wings and tie string to notch
Open both unicorn wings along fold lines. You can gently curve the wings downwards with your fingers for a different look. Tie the invisible string to the hanging notch. If you’re using the string in my materials list or something similar, you’ll have to tie it more than once for the knot to hold.
You can hang these up with some scotch tape. If you don’t like the way scotch tape looks, these toggle hooks work well. They’re meant to be used on walls but I use mine as ceiling hooks.
These unicorns would look fabulous in a nursery or little girls’ room. Wall artwork is great but there’s something about 3D room decor that really completes the room.
Please share your unicorns and tag us on instagram at @chaivdesign. We love to see how you use them!
