Dot bomb icosahedron

All the Dot Bombs these days have left me with a large collection of useless business cards so I decided to do something with them to salute the bygone era; I made an icosahedron ornament. You can make your very own by following the steps and illustrations below. They make lovely parting gifts for the recently downsized or just a fun activity for the unemployed slacker with lots of time and a box of old business cards to play with.

Dot Bomb Icosahedron Project

Time: Appx. 1 hour
Cost: Free if you snag office supplies, about $3 if not.

I. Gather Supplies

1. Dot Bomb business cards or postcards
2. Elmer's paper craft glue gel
3. Small paintbrush
4. Exacto Knife
5. Craft/Exacto mat or cardboard square
6. Sharp Scissors
7. Ruler
8. Pen or pencil
9. Compass
10. Little binder clips or tiny paper clips
11. Hole Punch
12. String
13. Glitter Spraypaint [ optional ]

II. Marking the Cards

1. Set your compass to have a radius of 1cm to 2cm [ example has 2cm ].
2. Draw a circle with your compass on the business card or postcard.
3. Take the pointy end of the compass, place it on the circle you just drew and tick a mark with the pencil on the circle. Move the pointy end of the compass to that mark and repeat until you have six marks on the circle. Connect every other one to make a triangle. [ I'm aware this isn't exact but we aren't building rocket ships here, relax ]. I make this triangle out of heavy cardboard to make folding the edges faster and easier later since this step would only be done once.

III. Preparing the Discs

1. Take the scissor and cut out the circles you drew on the business cards. You will need 20 circles/discs for each isocohedron.
2. Fold flaps up for each of the 20 circles.
3. Take 5 circles, the paintbrush and the glue gel and glue two of the circles together by painting glue on one flap and holding them together. Add another to the side until you have a 5 sided top object like this one.
4. Make another top so that you have two and set them aside to dry.
5. With the gluebrush and 5 more circles, make a single row attaching them on 2 sides by gluing the flaps together.
6. Use your gluebrush and coat the top flaps with glue and attach this row gently to one of the tops. Use the little binder clips to help the glue set and dry in the right position.
7. Repeat the 2 previous steps with the remaining 5 circles and attach to the still available flaps on the ball-in-progress.
8. Pick up the other top piece and put glue on the 5 available flaps and attach it to the 5 available flaps on the ball-in-progress.
9. Let it dry for a little while.

IV. Finishing

1. Punch hole in a flap for hanging.
2. Put string through so that the ball can be hung.
3. Spray glitter paint on it for a nice sparkly touch.