Paper Christmas Trees

I don't think I've ever seen a project that has caused so many people to ask "how do you make that?" than the Christmas trees on the front of our Holidays from the Heart Gift Guide.  So, I decided I had to try one for myself, and they're really not hard.  It's not rocket science, nor do you need precise, step-by-step instructions to get this one figured out.   And, I've also discovered that there's really more than one way to make one of these trees.  Let me give you some general tips for how I made mine, then I'll give you some other options.  First of all, to make these trees, you need the Artiste Cricut cartridge which makes the rosettes (or yo yo's, as I like to call them) that will make up the layers of this tree.  

Here's a photo of the page I used in the Artiste book.  You can choose any rosette you want--it's up to you to decide what kind of edge you want on your layers.

As for size, the largest piece you can cut on a regular 12" mat is about 2 1/2 inches, so that's where I started.  One piece, cut at 2 1/2 inches, will look like this (it's about 11 inches long):

Once your piece is cut, you'll accordion fold it using the slits as your guide.  If you're using cardstock, you may have to using a scoring tool to score lines across those slits, but with B&T paper, which is a little lighter, you can probably just fold it back and forth by hand.

For the bottom layer, I cut THREE of these 2 1/2 inch strips.  I accordion-folded all of the strips and then attached them end-to-end to make a circle.  Note, your circles will keeping "boing"ing up like a lampshade--they won't stay put until you glue them down.  I cut a circle of cardstock (about three inches for the bottom layer) and hot-glued the rosette to it.

For the next layer, I again cut three 2 1/2 inch pieces, but I scrunched them together a little tighter than the first rosette so that the circle was a bit smaller.  Then, for the third layer, I cut only two pieces to make that rosette, which made it a little smaller.  For the fourth layer, I dropped the size down to 2 1/4.  I think I used three for layer four, then only two at 2 1/4" for layer five.   For layer six, I dropped the size down to 2".

So basically, you keep dropping the size down by 1/4" increments. 

You may have noticed that the layers on my tree get a little shallower as I go up.  If you want to keep every layer of your tree the exact same depth (which is more like what is shown on the Holidays from the Heart Gift Guide shown below) I'd probably keep cutting my rosette pieces somewhere between 2 and 2 1/2", and then, as I worked my way up, I'd just trim down the height of the piece on the straight side (you'll have to do this while the rosette is still flat, before you glue them together).   This will allow you to make your circles a little bit tighter each time.   

The snowflakes on the tree were also cut with the Artiste cartridge using our silver Glitter Paper.  Our Glitter Paper cuts beautifully on the Cricut, so give it a whirl.

You can find all of the supplies for this project (Artiste Cartridge, Sparkle & Shine paper, and Glitter paper) on my website at http://christina.ctmh.com