Tree decorations inspired by The Fir Tree 24

 in Age 5-7 / childrens craft / Christmas / Christmas Crafts / christmas decorations / Tween  tagged christmas / christmas craft / christmas decorations / christmas ornaments / christmas trees / crafts / kids craft by

We love making decorations as a family for our Christmas tree and this year we are joining in again with 10 days of kid made ornaments and this year they are inspired by a book.  So ours are tree decorations inspired by The Fir Tree by Hans Christian Anderson.

kio made tree ornaments inspired by the fir tree

Each year we buy new christmas books for our Advent basket.  This year I bought a book for me.  It is a beautifully illustrated edition of The Fir Tree by Hans Christian Anderson.

the fir tree

  1. US Amazon Link The Fir Tree
  2. UK Amazon Link The Fir Tree

It is illustrated by Sanna Annukka, who is a British artist of Finnish British  origin, who also does design work for Marimekko and has a real Mid Century style.   This book will be long admired in The Mad House.

How to make a Tree Decoration

 

 Materials:

  1. Craft foam, green card or felt
  2. Wooden cotton reels
  3. Bostik Blu Tack  or sticky tac
  4. GLitter star stickers
  5. Wooden skewers
  6. Low tac glue stick or Bostik Extra Strength Sticki Dots
  7. Metalic shiny card cut in to triangles
  8. Assorted glitter 
  9. PVA glue
  10. Embroidery Thread and or ribbon

We had so many ideas of decorations that we could do inspired by this beautiful book, so expect more in the coming weeks, but we settled on this one as it is easily adapted for the age of the children involved.

Mine are eight and nine, so needed something that was fun to do, but slightly challenging and both are living using a low heat glue gun at the moment.tree template

Firstly they cut their tree shapes.  We were going to stick two triangles together, but Maxi (my mathematician) said that it would be easier cutting a rhomboid boy was he right for the ones we were standing up.  This way we had one less edge to glue.

green triangles on the foam

For the one you are hanging then a single triangle shape is perfect as you do not need a back.

It is simpler to decorate your tree at this stage and allow it to dry before assembling. We wanted to stick triangle shapes in shiny card to our trees to make them resemble the Fir trees in the book. To make our decoration hang we used a small off cut of ribbon to create a loop and secured it with the glue gun before covering with a glittery star sticker

tree back

Younger children could just stick decorations on with a glue stick or you could use stickers.

hanging tree decorations

Mini Christmas tree forest

Christmas tree forest

For our mini forest the boys decided to do glitter triangles, therefore, they used PVA to create the pattern they wanted on one side of the foam before covering completely in glitter and allowing to dry.  They then tapped off the excess glitter on to paper and returned it to the pots.

tree glitter

They then covered the mini cotton reels with either embroidery thread or scraps of brown ribbon and secured them with the glue gun.

We added a small amount of blur tac of sticky tac to the inside of the mini cotton reel before pushing a wooden skewer in to it. We then pushed the skewer through the bottom of the tree and cut it to length (my boys managed this with a pair of kitchen scissors, but be careful as the skewer does ping off).

making the trees

Then using the glue gun we glued both side of the tree together before topping with a glitter star sticker.

a forest

 

Why not take a look at the other people taking part in this fab series.  Today is the first day and there will be many more over the next ten days to inspire you.

So take a look at today’s ornaments at Glittering Muffins, One Perfect Day,  Play Trains!, Adventure in a Box, Something 2 Offer and our host Mama Miss

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