Craft: Upcycled Christmas Trees

We at Mommy Labs love hoarding junk and then upcycling them into something artful. From disposable glasses to dozens of cardboard boxes, from the tags on new dresses to fabric scraps – there’re very few things that can find their way to trash under our scanner eyes!

I’m beyond delighted to share my daughter – Pari’s – handmade Christmas trees with all you wonderful readers of hands on: as we grow! [smiles]

For these Christmas trees too, Pari sorted through our chest of drawers where we stash our junk and brought out a tall paper glass. She wanted one more – for her friend to make; but we only had one tall glass like that. I remembered the used birthday party hats that I had saved from last year.

After tearing off the golden paper, we had a whitish paper cone left of the hat that could be painted on nicely.

So, she and her friend set about painting the glass and the cone with green tempera paint. They mixed 2-3 shades of green and some white paint to get the shade of their liking.

Once painted, we let them dry. In the meantime, they cut out a star using a stencil to make the tree topper. They smeared those with glitter and taped a straw – half the length behind each.

I drilled a hole on top of the paper glass tree and poked the straw inside. The star now sat a little above the trees.

They had already started to look so festive!

Now was the time to rummage through the tiny version of a chest of drawers where we store all the tiny weeny junk – like – buttons, sparkly stars, beads etc.

The decorating was their favourite part.

Finally, Pari wanted to write some letters to Santa so she could fold them and place under the tree for Santa to read. She wants to write many more until Christmas. Kids and their innocent wishes!

Hope you like our upcycled Christmas trees.

Merry Christmas to you all and Happy Holidays!

If you’d like to get some more ideas for upcycled art/craft from junk, you can check these out on my blog:

• An Upcycled Artful Musical Dice
  
• Leaf Decoupage Candle Holder
• Self Portrait with Magazine Cuttings and Mixed Media

Rashmie is a homeschooling mom to a 6-year old girl. She writes on Mommy Labs about creative learning for children with focus on open-ended art, integrating art and fun in literacy, and connecting our kids with nature. She loves photography, traveling and spending time in nature. You can connect with MommyLabs on Facebook and Twitter.