Craft #1: Paper Christmas Tree

Paper X-mas Tree!

This blog is suppose to be not only about food but crafts too.  I was finally inspired to put up a craft post, especially since Christmas is coming around and I love making Christmas ornaments, cookies, decorations, and cards.  I saw a similar tree to this at a local craft store so I decided to make one for myself.  It's easy to do and you can get pretty creative with it but is kind of time consuming since you have to cut all of the paper strips and glue each one individually. I bought a large cone so it too me longer to do but this would make a great ornament if made from little cones :)

Things You Will Need:

1 Cone (Any size, I used 13.75"x5" cone, you can find it at any craft store for about $1-2)
3 Sheets of 12"x12" paper (try to choose patterns and colors that complement each other)
1 yard of ribbon (I used two ribbons to make it fancier)
Acrylic Paint (I used white because it matched the colors of the paper I was using, if the paper you are using is predominately green, use green paint, etc.)
1 small painting sponge
1 disposable plastic or foam plate
ruler
scissors (or paper cutter)
pencil
white glue
hot glue gun

Step by Step How To:

Things you will need



Put some acrylic paint on to the plate



Paint the cone, give it 2 coats of paint.

 

Cut the paper into strips:
4 - 0.75" strips
4 - 1" strips
4 - 1.25" strips 



Now cut the strips into 3" sections



Add a little bit of white glue to one end of the strip, next fold over and hold for 10-15 seconds. Continue to do this until you have finished all the strips.



Put glue on one side of the folded strip and press against the painted cone for 10-15 seconds.  Start by putting the wider strips at the bottom; as you work your way up the cone reduce the size of the strips.  Hence, for the bottom portion use the 1.25" strips, for the middle portion use the 1" strips and for the top portion use the 0.75" strips. 



You can overlap the strips however you'd like.



Make a bow with the ribbon.



Heat up your glue gun and add some hot glue to the back of the bow, place the bow on top of the tree and hold down for about 5 seconds.

And that's it!

The tree is pretty easy and fun to make! When my sister saw the tree she thought I had bought it so that was definitely a plus! :) What are some of your favorite holiday crafts?