How To Make A 3D Christmas Tree Card Or Decoration

Did you know that the tradition of having a Christmas tree was started by the Victorians? Queen Victoria's husband, Prince Albert, set up a decorated tree at home for their family. And if the Royal Family had one, everyone else wanted one!

Here's a Show Me guide to making your own Christmas tree from two pieces of card. It's quick and easy, and you can use it as a decoration or give it to someone special as a Christmas card.

You will need:

* Scrap paper (a piece as tall as you want your tree to be)
* Coloured card (twice the size of the scrap paper)
* Pencil
* Scissors
* Ruler

For decorating your tree, you may also need felt pens, paints, coloured pencils, bits of wrapping paper and sticky-backed paper, cotton wool, glitter, sticky tape, and a glue stick.

Remember: if you ARE using paints or glue, protect your work surface with newspaper!


Fold the piece of scrap paper edge to edge lengthways...

...then, starting and finishing on the fold of the paper, draw half a Christmas tree shape.

If you want your finished tree to stand up, make sure you give your shape a flat bottom.

Carefully cut out your tree shape and unfold it... and there you have your template!

Using your template, draw two Christmas tree shapes onto your sheet of coloured card...

...then cut them out.

Now, here's the important bit! Use a ruler to measure halfway between the top and bottom of each tree shape.

Then draw a line from the top to the middle of one tree shape and a line from the middle to the bottom of the other tree shape.

Cut along the lines you've just drawn...

...and slot the tree shapes together.

And there you go! A 3D Christmas tree which stands up by itself.

Now it's time for you to get creative...

You can decorate your tree in loads of different ways.

It's probably easier to decorate the shapes before you slot them together.

Here we've used some star shapes out of coloured card...

...and attached a loop of thread to the top with sticky tape, so it can be hung up.

This one is decorated with shapes cut from sticky-backed paper.

You could also glue on scraps of shiny wrapping paper.

You could make your tree into a Christmas card by writing a message on one section of it.

We used felt pens to draw some fairy lights on this one (and we're sure your drawing is better than ours!).

This pink one has star-shaped holes punched in it with a special hole punch. You can buy one in a craft shop.

This snowy tree was made by putting glue on the edges of the tree, then pressing small pieces of cotton wool onto it.

Lots of small Christmas trees can be threaded onto a piece of string to make a garland.

We're sure that with a little imagination, you can come up with even better ideas for decorating your 3D Christmas tree. You could end up with a festive forest of them!

Don't forget to send us some photos of your finished masterpieces - it would really make our Christmas.

If you're in the mood for more Victorian Christmas crafts, check out A Victorian Christmas from the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS from the Show Me team!!!

All images © Kristen Bailey / Show Me 2007