How to Make Mini Christmas Trees

For the last two years I have organized a Christmas Craft Day at the school. The kids have a chance to rotate thru craft stations and make a bunch of crafts to take home. This year I have 6 classes participating (grades 1-3) around 120 kids. I have a team of volunteers who help run the stations but I need to come up with the crafts and test them out. This year we are doing 12 crafts. I plan on posting them all and maybe throwing in some of last year's as well.

Here is Craft #1 Mini Christmas Trees. They are approximately 5 inches tall and very easy to make.

Materials Required:

1 toilet paper roll

green felt ( I used 3 different shades)

tacky glue

scissors

felt pen

small (5mm) beads and/or pompoms, stars or sequins

green paint or marker (optional)

You need to print out 2 templates

Template 1

Template 2

The first step is optional. My husband pointed out that you really don't see the toilet paper roll so you don't need to paint it.

I painted mine so I'm leaving this step in.....I don't think the kids at school will be doing this step but you can choose for yourself.

Paint toilet paper roll or color in with green marker. Let dry.

Using the printed out templates, trace onto felt. If you are using different colors decide where you want them to go.

You need:

1 XL

1 L

2 M

2 S

and 2 XS

Cut out your circles. I find that when I use a marker to trace with I try to cut just inside that line. This way there is no black marks on the felt.

Cut out 1 top piece as well.

You now need to cut an x in the middle of each circle. Easiest way to do this is to fold circle in 1/2 and then in 1/2 again, make a cut and then repeat going the other way.

For the large circles make your x cut about 1 1/2 inches long. As you work up to the smaller circles the cuts get a bit smaller. Felt has a bit of stretch to it and you can also clip it a little larger if needed.

When you open it up it should look like this.

Repeat for all circles.

Take your top piece and place a little tacky glue on the bottom corner of one end.

Curl the other end around and glue together. It should look like a little hat.

Let dry.

Take your toilet paper roll and flatten it slightly on one end. Using you scissors cut the side from about 1 inch above the bottom to a point at the top. Do this on both sides and try to get them equal.

Place a little glue at the point and glue the two points together.

You can use a clothespin to hold it together while drying.

When dry try to round out the roll again so the sides are so squished. You want the bottom to be in its original shape so it will stand up.

Take your felt circles and start pushing them down onto the toilet roll.

You don't need to glue them in place in fact it's better if you don't. That way you can position your tree branches just so.

Place all the circles on. Smooth the circles down a bit so it forms a sloping tree shape.

It should look something like this.

Put some glue in the top cap and place on the point. You may have to hold into place for a while or use that clothespin.

Now you can decorate. I kept mine fairly simple as that is what the kids will be doing. I used some 5mm pony beads which kinda of look like lights, some pompoms, and a star at the top.

I experimented a bit with a garland but found it a little fussy for the kids. You could use some glitter glue or sequins.

There you have it. A mini Christmas tree that stands on its own using simple supplies.

You can even make mini presents to go underneath.

give it a try and I'll see you next time with another Christmas craft.

gail

How to Make Angel Pencil toppers

There's nothing like a few good pencil toppers to make the homework go faster.....or to help you with that Christmas list. I enjoy making pencil toppers with little people on them. ( sorry for the picture quality but we have been cloudy so no good natural light...I'm hoping for a mini picture studio for Christmas ) Here are some Christmas elf ones that I'm working on. The basic design comes from the Gnome Craft Book. One of my favs, in fact I find all the little Floris craft books great. Here is the how to on the angel, one I came up with on my own.

Materials Required: felt tacky glue or if you want to sew them needle and thread wood beads 14mm or 1/2" beads for hands 3-5mm pipe cleaners pencils wool roving or stuffing store bought wings or artificial flowers to make wings from. template Take your wood bead and either draw on or paint on your face. I like to paint mine but my kids do better using micron markers and drawing on their face. Slide on to pipe cleaner until it is in the middle. Bend the top half of the pipe cleaner down around back of the head and twist about three times underneath to the other half of the pipe cleaner. Try to get it as tight as you can. Now we will make the halo. Take some gold or silver pipe cleaners, you could also use wire, form a loop and push end down thru hole in head. Take some wool roving or stuffing ( poly stuffing will work as well), put some tacky glue around the head and glue wool on for hair. You can always style it a bit after the glue has dried but don't fuss with it now you'll just end up with wool stuck to your fingers.

Your head should look like this. I like having the halo above the head as it kinda looks like a kid in a Christmas concert or something. You could just make a loop and glue directly on the head on top of the hair. Using the template cut out the dress and collar from some felt. Make sure to cut the dress on the fold. The collar can be cut with pinking shears if you're really careful or you can make the jagged edge with some sharp scissors. You could also just leave it round if you don't want to fuss. For the silver angel I cut my collar from some ribbon. Make a little hole in the center of both the dress and collar for the head. Thread the collar on first, then the dress. Take your two smaller hand beads and thread on to the pipe cleaner ends. Push up into place.

Now this step is a bit harder to explain. Holding the bead, bend the pipe cleaner end back on itself and twist a few times to form an arm. You want the hand to be in place at the end of the sleeve of the dress. Wrap what is left of the pipe cleaner around the halo wire a few times. If you don't have a halo wire just wrap the two arm ends around each other. Take your pencil and wrap those pipe cleaner ends around the top. We will be gluing everything into place so don't worry about it being too tight.

Apply some tacky glue in the middle of the angel and glue the two dress sides together sandwiching in the pencil. If you want you can sew it into place instead.

Use some clothespins to hold it together while drying. You might find you need more glue depending on your felt. I find some types of felt just suck up the glue and don't stick on the first try. Glue on your wings. There are lots of angel wings in the stores right now for Christmas crafting. You can also use 2 petals from an artificial flower for wings or make your own from felt.

And there you have it an Angel to watch over you while making all those lists and checking them twice.

You could easily turn this pencil topper into a pin by leaving out the pencil and sticking a pin back on.

see you next time

gail

How to Make Fall Leaves that look like a Metal Sculpture

Here is a technique that turns plain brown paper bags or package paper into a realistic looking metal sculpture.


I know last time we did some fall leaves but I couldn't help myself. I needed to try one more.

(click on picture to see detail)




This requires adult supervision as we use a candle.

Materials Required:

brown paperbags or package paper, tacky glue, wire 18 gauge or so, a candle, matches,

scissors, kleenex or paper towel, some metallic acrylic paint (optional), paintbrush, a bare branch

Lets get started.







Take your brown paper, cut into manageable pieces about the size of your hand. For this project I want 7 leaves but you can do however many you want. Odd numbers usually look better ( the golden rule of flower arranging)

Trace out you leaf shape, you can use the templates from DLTK again if you wish. You need two exact shapes for each leaf.





I just cut the two out at the same time.












Cut wire for the stem. You are going to sandwich it between the two cutouts. Each wire should be about 6 to 8 inches. Mine is black but you can use whatever you have on hand.






Spread some tacky glue on one of the cut out shapes.









Place wire in between, I bent mine a bit so it would be held in place a bit better.














Place other cut out on top matching edges and press to seal.



Do all the leaves. They kinda look good just like this but wait till the next step.








GO OUTSIDE. You want to do the next part in a well ventilated area, there is a bit of smoke from this technique so trust me go outside.






Spread the tacky glue over one side of the cutout leaf.
I used a paintbrush and coated it completely, don't be shy with the glue.









Light your candle. Holding onto the wire ( don't worry it doesn't get hot), hold the leaf with the glue exposed to the flame. Get right down into the flame. The tacky glue is not flammable, instead you will get bubbling and black soot all over the leaf. You need to expose each glue coated area to the flame for about 30 seconds.




Watch that the edges don't catch on fire. This sometimes happens when you are working on the first side. When the leaf is black take out of flame. Coat the other side with glue and repeat.










Your leaf will look like this.







Do both sides of all your leaves. You can cheat and just do one side if your leaves will be arranged against a wall or something where no one will see the other side, its up to you.


Let the glue dry completely. You'll find some areas may be a little white and the glue may still be wet under the black soot. Wait until it has had a chance to set. (this is hard for me as I can't wait to wipe them off to see what they look like)





Using a tissue or paper towel gently wipe the soot off the leaf. You'll find it starting to polish up to a high gloss. Some of the black will stay, that's normal.






At this point you might want to leave them as is. I wanted some gold detail on mine. Click on picture to see detail.








Take some metallic acrylic paint, I used antique gold and I also mixed some fall colors into the gold here and there for a different look, using a dry brush and only a little bit of paint lightly paint the leaf where ever you want some color.






You can then take a paper towel and remove some of the paint so there's just a bit of metallic patina to the leaf.

Let dry.


To make your sculpture wrap the wire end around the bare branch where ever you want a leaf to be.


Gorgeous!!!


Looks like a cast sculpture but its only paper, glue and paint.

You can also do this technique on cardboard. Cut out a mask or animal shape, do the technique and it will look like an expensive metal sculpture.

Click on the photo to see the detail in the leaf.

One final note, if you are interested in joining the Virtual sketch date, the September image has been posted and you have until Sunday to give it a go.

See you next time

gail