Papercrafted Christmas Tree tutorial

One of my favorite craft mediums is paper, so I was thrilled to be asked to create a papercrafted Christmas project with Jo-Ann and Die Cuts With a View (DCWV).

Do you find yourself being drawn to a certain type of "decoration" each year? I always love snowmen, but last year, I seemed to be drawn to stars - and this year, it's Christmas trees. So I decided to make my own papercrafted tree!



Supplies needed:

• 12" long wooden dowel to fit in base (mine is 1/8" diameter)
• 4" circular wooden base with hole drilled in center for dowel
• several different red and green papers from DCWV's Christmas & Winter stack (I used 10)
• decoration for top of tree (I used a star cut from a floral spray) 
• misc: glue, scissors, ruler, pencil, paint, paintbrush

Directions:
1) paint wooden base (you can finish it however you like, or even leave it unfinished - I used silver metallic paint); I also covered the top of it with green paper and a coat of glitter Mod Podge.

2) insert dowel into base

3) For the tree, you're going to roll paper strips and stack them to look like a tree, so they will need to be different lengths. I found it easiest to roll them up first, then trim them to the desired length. You can make them any size you want, but these are the measurements I used:

• cut 5 strips 3" x  6"
• cut 4 strips 3" X 5"
• cut 6 strips 3" X 4"
• cut 5 strips 3" x 3"
• cut 4 strips 3" x 2"

(My tree has 24 rolls. The bottom roll is 6" wide, roll #6 is 5" wide, roll #10 is 4" wide, roll #16 is 3" wide, roll #21 is 2" wide, and roll #24 is 1" wide.)

4) Use a pencil or dowel to roll the strips, then glue the end in place so paper stays rolled.


5) Place the rolls in order on a flat surface, and use a dowel to push one side into the desired sloped shape (the other side will look weird, but that's okay). Now carefully lay another dowel on top of the uneven side, making the dowel mimic the shape you want that side of the tree to have (probably the mirror image of the other side). Take a pencil and lightly mark where you want to trim the edges. Using scissors, make the necessary cuts, being sure the cuts are straight up & down, not slanted.


6) Now start gluing the rolls onto the base & dowel. Make sure the bottom roll is centered by placing a mark on the center back of the roll, then gluing it to the dowel at this mark. Now you'll be able too center the remaining rolls by "eyeballing" it. I placed my tree base so that the dowel was horizontal while I glued the paper rolls onto it.


7) I used a tacky glue, so I only worked with about 5 rolls at a time. I glued them in place and let them dry before moving on to the next rolls because I wanted to be sure they dried straight. If you use a hot glue gun, you will be able to work more quickly since the glue sets in seconds.

8) Once you have all of the rolls in place and the glue has dried, you can attach the tree top decoration.


Note: You can see the dowel if you turn the tree around. I don't have a problem with that, but if you prefer, you could glue a second set of paper rolls up the back of the dowel to make a double-sided tree.


And that's it! A papercrafted tree for your holiday delight!!

To help get you started with your own papercrafted Christmas project, here is a link to coupon for 50% off any one regular-priced item at Jo-Ann http://bit.ly/17UXWOx  (can be used in-store or online)

You can find DCWV products at your local Jo-Ann or on Joann.com  http://bit.ly/It8v1m!

What are your favorite papercrafted projects?

Are you blog-stalking me yet? If not, you should be! You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, Bloglovin', Pinterest, LinkedIn, & Polyvore!

I link up at these parties: party, Party, PARTY!