Christmas Card Christmas Tree
Difficulty: Average
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Parental supervision is recommended
Turn your favorite Christmas cards into a wood-based Christmas tree centerpiece that your family can enjoy for years to come.
What you'll need:
- A 1/4" wooden dowel 13-1/2" long
- A 4-1/2" inch circle or square of wood (at least 3/8" thick)
- Sandpaper
- Green or brown paint (optional)
- Drill with 1/4" bit (for adult usage only)
- One styrofoam 1-1/2" ball
- 36 common pins
- 20 tri-beads
- 36 sequins
- Paper punch
- Stapler and staples
- Approximately 50 old Christmas cards (picture calendar pages or plain green construction paper would work, also)
- Scissors
How to make it:
- Drill a 1/4" hole 1/4" deep in the center of the piece of wood and in the styrofoam ball.
- Sand the 4 1/2" piece of wood and wood dowel smooth.
- Paint the wood. This is the stand (base) of your tree.
- Decorate the styrofoam ball by putting a common pin through a sequin, a tri-bead and then poke the pin all the way into top of ball (opposite where the 1/4" deep hole is drilled). Continue decorating the ball until all the beads are used. Next, poke a common pin through a sequin and push into the ball here and there for extra color. This will be the top of your tree.
- With your scissors, cut the following pieces by using the center of your Christmas card fronts as the guide for where you want your pictures cut out:
- Six 7" X 5" pictures
- Six 6-1/2" X 4"
- Six 6" X 3-1/2"
- Six 5-1/2" x 3-1/2"
- Five 5" X 3"
- Five 4-1/2" X 3"
- Five 4" X 3"
- Five 3-1/2" X 2-1/2"
- Five 3" X 2-1/2"
- Five 2 -1/2" X 2-1/2"
- Five 2" X 2"
- Overlap corners on one end of each of your 59 pictures until you have a sharp point. Staple those two corners together to hold the point in place.
- Take your paper punch and punch a hole half an inch in from the other edge of your picture (opposite of the pointed end). Try to center the hole.
- Start to assemble your centerpiece by pushing the dowel into the hole in your wood base.
- Start stacking your pictures (pretty side up) onto the wood dowel by sliding each hole over the dowel. Start with the largest pictures cut out from your cards and work down to the smallest. Stagger your points around the tree and leave space between each layer. The pointed pieces should come within a quarter of an inch from the top of wood dowel. Slide the decorated styrofoam ball on top. Your centerpiece is complete. Just add a pretty tablecloth or doily underneath.
Tips:
- Make a template for each size and let the kids do the tracing and cutting.
- Store it after the holidays by sliding the smallest pictures into the next size, etc.
- Plain green construction paper could be substituted for the Christmas cards. This would make it more useful as an idea for teachers to try. Some glue, glitter, sequins or paper dots added to the construction paper tree limbs would make it a more festive centerpiece for children to take home to their parents.
