Project Christmas Tree

When Christmas rolls around I love to give of myself. Homemade gifts really show you took the time to put thought and effort into that one single person. I'm a baker and give out the sweet treats as my gifts. Cakes, cookies, fudge, brittle and rum balls depending on the person. I love decorating them. I have a blast and it seems I get more and more into it every year.

For the kids, they're gifts are more crafts. Last year we made small things out of soup cans and ribbons, I wish I had some pictures of those, they were great! They really enjoy getting to do the crafts, and really look forward to what they're going to do every year.

Anyway, my Mom loves to put out several different trees and snow villages for Christmas time. It's one of the many things she does for Christmas we all look forward to. She builds her own lawn characters and has since we were little. Actually when we were little she painted on our big living room window whatever cartoon was the biggest hit at that time and made it Christmasy. So I thought a perfect present for mom from the kids this year, would be a Christmas tree she could display. What I liked was the kids could do most all of the jobs on their own. I did use the glue gun a couple of times when it was tricky for them. Each one had they're own idea of what the tree should have and look like. We tried to get everyone's in.

Everything we used was already here, reused and recycled. Old Christmas tinsel that really wasn't long enough for our tree, ribbon from presents past, cardboard that was laying around and no longer useful as a fort, glue, glitter and paint. A cardboard christmas tree!! Very easy, just time consuming. But each child could take part, which was very important.


Cardboard was the main component. It was painted and cut into decorations, ornaments and the star....and the tree!


I printed out a picture of the kids and glued it onto cardboard and added glitter.

Hand painted wooden ornaments.

The tree just slipped in together.

The finished product. We decorated some plain ol' plastic balls with glitter, wrapped up some boxes, added lights and tinsel.

Thats some old cob web from Halloween we never got a chance to put up by the way. Came in handy I think!

The hardest thing with these gifts is you want them to come out sooo perfect, because you know they're going to be gifts..... But you have to just let the kids do it and be pleased with their abilites. I was extremely pleased with their work. We had a few meltdowns, one kid wanted to be in charge of this or that and didn't get to. Or someone messed up and the others didn't like it. But it got finished in time, and everyone's hard work was displayed. We laughed, listened to Christmas music and just bonded as a family. And thats all that matters. It's not the destination but the journey there.