This is one in a series of twelve paper ornaments I’m making this year, one a month so that when December rolls around, I won’t be surprised to discover I’ve done nothing about my wish to have a fully paper crafted Christmas Tree.
When it comes to Christmas tree lights, you are either on Team All White, or Team All The Colors. While both have their pros and cons, it’s rare you find someone who switches it up year to year.
We’ve always been Team All The Colors at SuzerSpace, and the bigger the bulb, the better.
So when I was crafting these paper Christmas Tree Ornaments, I knew I was going to decorate them with lots of color. And when I remembered the box of flat backed rhinestones Mom had given me, I was all set.
To create these Paper Christmas Tree Ornaments you need:
- Four different green colors of lightweight card stock. They don’t have to be full sheets – I used scraps.
- Some heavyweight brown cardstock or lightweight chipboard
- Small Shiny flat backed rhinestones (or glitter, if you are allowed)
- Tacky Glue
- Thin twine for hanging.
I drew up the shapes I wanted for my layered Christmas tree in Illustrator. I like to color them as I go to see approximately how the final craft will finish. To be able to use them as cut files, I remove all the color and stroke all the lines with a 1 point stroke. I then export the file as a DXF because the regular version of Silhouette Studio won’t accept files from Adobe Illustrator, but it can use a DXF file.
In Silhouette Studio, I brought in my pieces and lined them up for best use of the paper. To cut them all at once, I trimmed scraps of green paper and positioned them on my mat to match the positions of the design layout on screen.
My chipboard was a little too thick to be cut on the Silhouette Cameo. It might have worked, but I didn’t want to risk it, so instead of cutting that part of the design, I used a sketch pen and had the Cameo draw it on my Chipboard for me to cut with scissors.
Assembly is easy – start gluing on one side, from the bottom (largest) layer to the smallest top one. Once dry, flip it over and glue the layers again, being careful to line them up to the ones on the front.
Once both sides are dry, attach your shiny gems in whatever direction you’d like. I only decorated one side and left the other as a plain tree.
I used a sharp large needle (it says “Canvas Repair” on the package) to poke a hole through the top and then threaded through a bit of twine so it can hang on the tree.
Pin this so you can find it later when you are ready to make your own!
Don’t forget to check out the other ornaments in this series:
No. 2 Glitter Snowflake Ornament
No. 4 3-D Paper Snowflake Ornament
No. 5 Paper Strip Ball Ornament
No. 7 Glitter Paper Star Ornament
No. 8 Hipster Paper Reindeer Ornament
No. 9 Peppermint Candy Ornament
No. 10 Brown Paper Packages Ornament
No 11. Chalkboard and Wood Slice Ornament
No. 12 Santa Hat Topper and Full Tree Reveal
This post will be added to some of these great blog party link ups.
People are always making comments as to how organised I am every year for Xmas, but I don’t think as far ahead as this, I love the idea though #happynow@_karendennis
It’s never too early to start crafting for Christmas! Thanks for sharing this fun and easy Christmas tree tutorial.
You are going to have an amazing Christmas tree I think. These are really cute, they look really inexpensive to put together too. Pinning.