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Thursday 15 December 2011

Making a sparkly Christmas tree

Sparkly Christmas tree

I specialise in taking up hobbies, buying all the equipment, doing it for a bit, losing interest and then storing it all away to collect dust. One of those hobbies was beading. Cakey wanted to make a sparkly Christmas tree for her room so I decided all the unused beads could be sacrificed.

I cut out the shape of a Christmas tree from thick cardboard (I used the back of an A3 pad) and placed it on a tray lined with baking paper. I gathered the beads into little containers and handed over the glue to Cakey. Cakey loved slathering the cardboard Christmas tree with glue and sprinkling/pouring the beads on.

Making a Christmas tree from beads
Cardboard Christmas tree on a tray to contain the beads

On goes the glue

Sprinkling the beads

To cover up the lakes of pva glue I gave Cakey some small cups of pink and yellow food colouring and a dropper (my inspiration for this came from a lovely post on the fabulous blog Teach Preschool). It produced a great effect and Cakey loved watching the food colouring dye shift and change when it mixed with the glue.

Christmas tree craft
Adding drops of food colouring

beads Christmas
Food colouring mixing with the glue

When it was partly dry I peeled it off the baking paper and placed it on a clean sheet of paper. We actually did this activity on the day we left for our big trip so our tree is still sitting on the kitchen bench waiting for us to get home and pin up.

This was a fun activity, but I did have to wait until Boo was asleep - beads and babies don't mix. In hindsight, I would have made the cardboard christmas tree a bit smaller as we went through a huge amount of beads to cover it. But let's get real – it's going to be a while before I ever find the time to sit down and bead again.

For another Christmas craft using beads and glue have a look at this and for more Christmas craft ideas check out my Christmas Pinterest Board.

If this is your first visit to At home with Ali – welcome. If you like it, you can follow along via email, RSS or facebook. You can also find me on Pinterest and InstagramCheers Ali

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9 comments:

  1. with a bit of luck it might just about be dry by now!! This activity would be a child's delight.

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  2. Other ideas for Christmas trees are paper plates painted green and stuck on a backing to make a tree shape, and green handprints cut out also make great trees when overlapped

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  3. Wow! What a fantastic tree! It looks marvellous!

    Thank you for sharing on Kids Get Crafty!!

    Maggy

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  4. Very Pretty! Lots of beads and glue sounds like a child's dream!

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  5. That is some serious sparkle!!! I love it!

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  6. Beautiful. I've got lots of beads too, since I suffer from the similar condition of taking up lots of new creative hobbies, buying all the stuff and then eventually moving on. It does mean that I have absolutely loads of art and craft materials that I can't bear to get rid of, and very little space!

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  7. Love this. On our Christmas craft list. I love sparkly!

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  8. Oh WOW! This is crazy beautiful!

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