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 (see image below)

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 (see image below) and cut them out.


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 (see below left.)

Now 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 - the one on the left below us decorated with shapes cut from sticky-backed paper. You could also attach a loop of thread to the top with sticky tape, so it can be hung up (see below centre).

You could make your tree into a Christmas card by writing a message on one section of it (below right).
  
The pink one below has star-shaped holes punched in it with a special hole punch. You can buy one in a craft shop.

The 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 like this one.

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!

You can explore a Victorian Christmas from the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney, Australia.

All images are copyright Culture24.