Christmas Cheer Party: Christmas Craft

I really explored my creative side this year with holiday decorations, more than I ever have thanks to all the fun challenges in the blog world!  Today is the kick-off for a 3 week party, the “Christmas Cheer Link Party”.  Several other amazing bloggers are hosting each week, and I can’t wait to share my projects and see all the fun things everyone else will be sharing!

Here’s our dining table after a trip to the dollar store and Hobby Lobby.  I was able to get most of my projects done during my week off work (before Thanksgiving), otherwise I’d probably still be working on them all!

Today’s theme was a Christmas Craft; and although I have several projects with this theme, I want to share one in particular today that was easy and inexpensive.

Glitter Ornament Twine Trees

This project involved a hot glue gun, but I was careful enough not burn myself at all!  I got a really bad blister on my finger in grade school from messing around with one, so I’m always super careful around them.  And I think I almost made my son jump out of his skin one time when he got near it, shouting “DON’T TOUCH IT!  DON’T TOUCH IT!!”   I had it out of his reach most of the time, but this time I had left it near the edge of the table.  The poor boy’s probably scarred for life.

Okay, enough of my crazy fear of hot glue and on to the project!  I had picked up a few foam trees at the dollar store, thinking that I would try to make ornament trees.  However, I wanted to add some “natural” décor to our Great Room and decided to wrap them with twine.

I applied a thin line of glue around the bottom of the tree and quickly applied the twine.

I kept wrapping up the tree with the twine and applied a small line of hot glue every few layers to help secure and tighten up the twine.  I’m so glad I did this, because at one point the tree slipped out of my hand.  Thankfully, I had just finished applying glue to a layer so I didn't undo a whole lot of work!  I pushed down the layers with one finger as I wrapped around the twine to make it nice and tight.

Towards the top of the tree I began adding more glue under the twine, then finished it off by curling the twine around the top and gluing every spot up to the final edge.

I had some small glitter ornaments left from other projects, and I certainly wanted to put them all to use.  I pushed the top of the ornament into the tree, pulled it out, applied a bit of hot glue, then pushed the ornament back into the top and held for a few seconds to let the glue dry.

I adored this little tree so much that I made 3 more within the next few days.  I used them around the Great Room on various surfaces, including our wine bar (below).

Stay tuned every Tuesday and Thursday for the next 3 weeks for my other party links.  Please click the link below to see all the other bloggers’ Christmas Craft projects today!

Erin