Christmas Tree Paper Plate Crafts

My kids loved making these little decorative trees. It’s a simple craft that uses a few basic materials and a lot of imagination…

We used:

• Old newspapers (to keep our table clean)
• Washable tempera paint
• Paint brushes
• Paper plates
• Tape
• Craft Glue
• Sequins etc.

This craft couldn’t be much simpler. I bought a stack of the cheapest paper plates I could find. I don’t think they would actually hold any food. That’s fine, there are tons of crafts that use paper plates, so these can be our craft-plates. 

Then I covered the kitchen table with newspaper and let the kids go to town with green washable paint. Okay, so my 3-year-old insisted that hers needed to be orange. If you read my blog at all then you’ve probably picked up on the fact that I don’t try to argue with this child about anything. There is no point. Orange Christmas tree it is. 

Once they thoroughly soaked their flimsy paper plates in paint, we left them overnight to dry.

The next day I cut a straight line from one edge of the plate to the center. The radius, if you will. A little geometry never hurt anybody! Probably. I really can’t swear to that.

Then we folded them into tree shapes by overlapping either side of the cut and taping them into place. We chose tape because we didn’t want to wait for glue to dry, and I was too lazy to mess with the hot glue gun. Transparency in blogging, my friends.

Our trees turned out short and wide, so if you want a taller, thinner tree I would suggest cutting a triangular shape on that radius cut. You know, like Pac-man, or a slice out of a pie, whichever one of those references resonates with you. 

For ornaments, I gave the kids Elmer’s glue, glitter glue and an assortment of shiny little gewgaws from our craft supply collection. These included star stickers, craft gems and a variety of sequins. I’ve seen people use little pom-poms too so you can just go crazy with this one. 

Then we let them dry. That’s it. This is one of those crafts where other than the basic instructions, I don’t tell my kids what to do at all. I just let them go crazy. Orange tree? Sure. Make the “ornaments” into a creepy tree-face? Why not. Cover the entire thing with glitter glue? Absolutely. They aren’t hurting anything, they are having fun and they are learning. 

Happy Holiday crafting!