Day 2 - Newspaper Christmas Trees

When your magazine is owned by the local newspaper, you happen to have a lot of newsprint available, and we enjoy recycling it into crafts whenever we can. This elegant frosted newspaper tree is courtesy of Art Director Deberah Williams, who was inspired to make it after seeing a similar craft from Martha Stewart.



The supplies are simple: A few newspapers. A 1/4-inch wooden dowel sharpened in an electric pencil sharpener. A small Styrofoam disc to hold the dowel and finished tree in place. A small glitter ornament to serve as a tree topper. Once you've gathered your supplies, it's time to start cutting the newspaper into squares ranging from 1 to 5-1/2 inches square, increasing in half-inch increments (i.e., 1 inch, 1-1/2-inch, 2 inch, 2-1/2-inch, 3-inch and so on, up to 5-1/2 inches). Deberah said that rather than taking time to individually count all those squares, she simply cut some of each size until she had a stack that was about 1-1/2 inches in thickness.



Beginning with the 5-1/2-inch size, fold a small stack of squares diagonally in half, then turn them and fold diagonally in half again. The middle of the "X" marks the exact center of your square, and you are ready to start spearing them on the dowel.


As she added squares to her dowel, Deberah fanned them out to simulate the branches on a Christmas tree.

The finished tree, which will be about 12-13 inches tall, should have a small piece of uncovered dowel remaining, and Deberah inserted hers in a small round disc of Styrofoam to hold it in place. When the tree was completed and fanned out to her liking, she doused it with a spray adhesive from the craft store and dusted it with glitter. An inexpensive ornament serves as a tree topper (see top photo) and finishes off the newspaper "tree."

And while Deberah apparently likes to cut paper, I prefer to punch designs from it using my old scrapbooking supplies. Here, I have punched out two different sizes of flowers from newspaper (punch through three or four thicknesses at once, depending on the individual punch) and then the larger size flower in construction paper.

Using small quilting pins, I speared a small newsprint flower, a pastel construction paper flower, and a large newsprint flower. These pieces were then pinned to a small (6-inch) Styrofoam cone until it was completely covered in flowers.


Finally, I made a small silver bow for a tree topper and pinned silver ribbon "garland" to complete this very simple tree. If you have children, hand them the punches and you can keep them busy for hours!