Paper Christmas Tree

Wobbly Paper Christmas Trees

The final instalment of our five days of Christmas brings you these adorable paper Christmas Trees.
Brief Description: Using a simple paper rolling technique you will learn how to make this adorable Christmas tree decoration

Keywords: wrap, roll, coil, cone, spiral, motion, Christmas, tree, sparkle, Glitter, Winter, festival, celebration

Materials Needed: Paper, Pritt Stick, a ruler, embellishments, scissors

Instructions:

• Select the paper you are going to use to make your tree. This can be coloured paper, paper that has been prepared by the children i.e. drawn, marbled etc, wrapping paper, news paper etc

• Place a ruler at the corner of the pieces of paper, carefully flip the ruler over so that you are rolling the paper tightly around the ruler.

Make sure you have an equilateral triangle at the corner of the paper before you start rolling

• Make sure you pull the ruler our slightly if using a 30cm ruler or you will wrap the ruler in the paper making the task difficult.

• When you have rolled all the paper add a dab of glue on the top corner, fold down to secure. Remove the ruler from the paper.

Make sure you add plenty of glue in the corner to ensure the  paper does not unfold

• This will produce a thin rolled piece of paper that you will use to make your tree and base unit.

Once you have rolled you paper run the ruler over the top to flatten the paper

• Make 10 green rolls of paper and 10 red rolls of paper

• When you have got all ten pieces you need to coil them together to make a large spiral shape. Start off with one strip and roll into a spiral as tightly as you can, secure the end with a piece of glue.

Once again add lots of glue each time you add a new strip of paper, this will give you a stringer structure

• Continue to add the remaining nine strips of paper until you have a coil. It is important to keep this coil as tight as possible.

Your coil needs to be nice and tight but not too tight that you cannot move the sections

• Lay a piece of green paper on the desk in a landscape position. Very carefully roll this as tightly as you can to form a straw like shape. Secure the edge with some glue. This will make the pole for the tree to rest on.

Roll a piece of A4 paper to make your stand for your wobbly tree

• Repeat the process of making a coil as shown above using the green strips, but this time add the central pole (the strawlike tube from point 9) and wrap the red strips around the central pole. Add each strip as above to create a coil. This will form the base and stand for your tree shape.

Wrap red paper around the straw nice and tight as above

Wobbly Christmas tree stand

• Carefully, using your thumbs, push out the centre of your green coil, you should start to form a cone shape. Keep pushing until you create the desired shape.

The coil pushed out to make your wobbly tree

• Once the cone is at the correct size, gently place this onto of the central beam to create your wobbly tree.

The finished trees

• Embellish with glitter, sequins, beads etc

Differentiation:

Key stage 1: Instead of using a ruler, Key Stage 1 pupils could roll the paper with their hands to make the strips for the tree. These can then be stapled together with adults help to create a cone shape, coiling and stapling as described above. Children can then decorate or paint the pieces.

Key Stage 2: Explore what happens if you use 20 strips or more, How big can you make your tree?

Gifted and Talented: Explore what else you can make using this technique, What happens if you put two cone shapes together or inside each other? What happens if you use a slightly thicker ruler? What happened if you shorten the support beam?  

if you have enjoyed these crafts and would like to find out more about children or adult art classes please contact Lisa Smith at the_laboratory@hotmail.co.uk

Felt Christmas Decorations

Activity 3 in our five days of Christmas brings you these lovely felt Christmas Decorations. 

Christmas Pudding brooch

Brief Description: These are cute little decorations which look great as badges, keyrings, mobile phone dangles or as Christmas tree decorations. These give children the opportunity to explore their sewing skills but can be adapted for younger children using either felt or funky foam.

Keywords: Sewing, stitching, felt, brooch, Christmas, festival, winter, decoration

Materials Needed: Felt (or funky foam), needles, thread, glitter glue, scissors, badge pin/keyring/mobile phone dangle

Instructions:

• Using funky foam of felt material cut out all the different sections required for your decoration. Draw out your design on a piece of paper and carefully consider what shapes and colours you require. For younger children you can have the pieces pre cut or prepare a template ready for children to draw around.

Prepare all the pieces of felt before you start sewing together

• For the pudding, the first parts to be sewn together are the brown circles which make up the core of the image. Using a blanket stitch, stitch all around the circles. You can use any stitch you like but I think the blanket stitch leaves a nice finish.

Sew on the custard

• Next add the “custard” on this is stitched onto the pudding using the same stitch.

Make sure you use the same stitch all the way around the brooch

• Add your final decoration pieces to the pudding such as holly at the top and the black currant spots. These can be stitched on or adhered using pva or a fabric glue.

All on details such as currant and holly

• Finally glue or stitch your brooch back to the back of the pudding. If you are using a keyring fixing, stitch this on the top of the decoration or if you want to place you pudding on a tree, leave a loop of thread at the top of the pudding.

Glue or sew on a brooch back

Here are some examples of other badges, decorations ready to be made

Completed Robin brooch

Completed Penguin Brooch

Differentiation:

Key Stage 1: Key stage one children might find these a little difficult to sew, but there are options to make this more adaptable. If you have the time you can use a hole punch and make holes around the outside of the felt/funky foam and younger children can sew the pieces together with a tapestry needle and wool. Obviously this takes a lot of time in the preparation stages, so planning ahead is vital. Alternatively children can draw and cut to the best of their abilities around templates. These can be cut out with the help of an adult and then the pieces can be glued together rather than sewn.

Key Stage 2: Using patterns or pictures as guides, key stage 2 pupils should be able to use a template and cut around this to acquire all the shapes and piece for their decoration. Once again key stage 2 children can sew the main body of the piece together and glue the additional pieces to the decoration for speed. Why not have the children make a couple of decorations and sell them at the school fete?

Gifted and Talented: Gifted and Talented pupils could play around with creating their own designs and making their own templates. Encourage the children to look carefully at the theme they are going to make, i.e a robin. What are the main parts they will need? what are the shapes? how many pieces? what size is your decoration going to be? Look at the size of the wings on the robin compared with the body, the beak, the eye and so on and so forth. Think about scale, character, colour and adding your own unique finish.