A fun Christmas Craft Idea from Amylee! 

Today, I give you a very easy and a trend tip to make nice Christmas trees with simple sheets of coloured paper and old brushes. A few minutes and just a few materials are needed!

This tutorial teaches us how to create a small paper fir tree to decorate the studio, the Christmas table or yummy pastries that we like to enjoy on New Year’s Eve.

The materials you need.

• 12 sheets of coloured paper « Folia »
• 1 scissors and 1 cutter
• 1 graphite pencil
• Some thin and long old brushes (or picktooth or Bamboo Skewers)
• 1 Transparent Roll Tape
• 1 compass drawing circles (OPTIONAL)
• Self-adhesive coloured round labels (OPTIONAL)

You can find these items on GreatArt (Shoreditch Store in London or online)

Step 1 – Foliage tree

• The sheets of paper used in my tutorial are 10x10cm (or 4”x4”).

• Take 6 square paper sheets in same color.
• Look at my picture above, I double all my sheets, so I have 12 sheets of paper in 6 squares. During all my tutorial, I work on doubled sheets of paper.
• Using a compass (or freehand) to draw 1 circle on each sheet of paper.
• Be sure to remove 5 or 6 mm at each new circle and decrease as the size of the circles decreases.

• To make the tutorial faster, I recommend you always work on doubled paper.
• Cut out the 6 circles (from the largest to the smallest).

NOTICE: Look at my picture, I have 6 circles that have 12 circles cut. During all my tutorial, I work on doubled sheets of paper.

Step 2  – Foliage tree

• Once the finished cutting, fold the paper circles (always 2 sheets one on the other) to make ½ circles, and in 2 to fold in quarter-circles (see image below).

• Using the scissors, cut like above with doing cut all around the edge of your quarter circles.

Step 3 – Foliage & tree top

• Unfold the quarter-circles and lay them flat.

• With the cutter, cut a small cross in the center of each circle. It’s very useful because it then makes it possible to thread the paper rounds along the brush.

NOTICE: Cutter becomes useless with toothpicks or chopsticks because the paper is easily pierced with sharp tips.
IMPORTANT: If you notice well, with the rest of the paper, I made a small folded and fringed strip (1.5 cm (or 0.5″) wide on about 2.5 cm (or 1″) high) for the top tree.

Step 4 – Foliage tree

Using an old, long and thin brush, thread the fringed rounds paper (always doubled sheets) along the handle.

Step 5 – Foliage tree

• Use the brush handle as a trunk for the fir tree.
• After checking the space between the foliage, cut a small strip of transparent adhesive to prevent foliage slipping along the brush and to keep the spreads evenly. For 6 foliage, you need 6 strips of transparent adhesive.

• NOTICE: If adhesive is too wide, do not hesitate to cut it in 2.

Step 6 – Foliage tree

• After sticking all the adhesives, the foliage is now firmly in place. We can now give a little of swelling to the branches of the fir tree by splitting the sheets of paper.

Step 7 – Tree top

• This step makes it possible to make a small hat to create the tree top.

• Using the small strip of folded and fringed paper, wrap it on itself while spreading the star-shaped fringe.
• Be sure to check that the top fits into the tip of the brush before attaching it with tape.

NOTICE: Do not hesitate to cut the top if it is too long.

Step 8 – Tree decoration (optional)

• I love the bare tree because but if you want to decorate the fir, the multicoloured stickers are then very practical!

The result in some pictures

And here we are… « My beautiful fir tree, king of forests …”

One last tip

With brushes (but also with picktooth and skewered sticks), I wanted to make a nice assortment of coloured Christmas trees.
The mini trees were very pleasing to my husband’s pastries. Enjoy !!!