Christmas Trees
by Jill Friendship
You will need:
- A piece of dark green felt, about 4 inches square
- An 8" length of green papercovered wire
- A large wooden bead
- A tiny red bow
- About 12" of tiny tinsel
- Lots of sparkly decorations
- A small amount of earth made from dried tea bag
- PVA glue
- A large flat button.
- Some little parcels wrapped in Christmas paper (I cut mine from a mail order catalogue, and little bits of wood or card for "presents").
Cut out a tree shape like the one in the picture, about 3 - 4 inches high, in green felt.
Bend the wire in half, and glue the top 3" of the bent wire to one side of the tree shape, leaving about 1/2" hanging below the tree.
When the glue is dry, wrap some tape around the "trunk" and push into the large bead until it's a tight fit.
Glue into place. Leave to dry.
Decorate your tree with sparkly jewels - you can find these and tinsel on ebay, and in craft shops.
Glue the bottom of the bead onto a large flat button, and then glue that onto a small piece of thick card. This helps to keep the tree upright.
The beauty of these little trees is that they don't take up a lot of space in a dolls house room - yet look quite pretty.
One year, I made my grandchildren presents of real money, wrapped in the paper, and set them out round the little tree, in a room box with a fireplace, and felt socks hanging on the mantelpiece, like the ones in the photo. if you really want to drive yourself mad - you can make paper chains - but after about 2" you might well find you don't want to make paper chains any more!
I am able to supply kits to make these trees and socks for the mantlepiece, if anyone would like one. The cost is £3 including postage in UK. My address is 1 Eastwood Manor Cottages, East Harptree, Bristol BS40 6AH.