How To Make Dollar Store Christmas Tree

The Dollar Store Christmas Tree is an old school homemade Christmas craft with a little whimsical handmade charm. The tree is a very very easy Christmas craft using materials from the yard, your home, your craft stash and the dollar store.

The tree can be made in any size. The size is determined by the materials on hand. A mini tree makes a cute little teachers’ gift and a fun group project for kids’ of all ages. Even the littles can help by choosing the branches and the colors of the ornaments.

There is no right or wrong! Any color scheme works and any “ornament” works!

How To Make Dollar Store Christmas Tree

Materials

Foam Paper or Construction Paper

Invisible Thread

Christmas clipart or hand drawing of ornament

Glass vase, size in proportion to the branches

Branches from yard or the neighbors yard or a park

Scissors

Glue gun or Craft glue (see notes below regarding the paper used)

Directions

Gather branches from a tree in the yard. Branches should have multiple off shoot branches. Leaves should be removed.
Choose the vase. The dollar store is a great option for vases if one is not available from your collection.
Find domain free Christmas or holiday clip art on the internet. If you draw well by free hand, do it!
I use images sized to 2.5″ by 2.5″ for a tall narrow vase. There is no specific size, I eyeball the images to the vase and size of branches, but the size is your choice.
By free hand cut out ornaments from the paper. I traced the images on foam paper or construction paper. I recommend foam paper due to the weight of the paper which helps the ornament hang straight. as the ornament is quite light. But construction paper works well too.
Double up and cut out two of each image. I double up the paper and can even use three to four pieces of paper so the ornaments will match. This is optional, but again the ornaments are light. These will be used to make an ornament sandwich, step 10.
The ornament hangers can be made in bulk from invisible thread or fishing thread.
Use approximately 8 inches of invisible thread per hanger. More than likely the finished size will be tweaked later when hanging the ornaments.
Make the hanger by folding the thread in half and then make a double knot at the top about 1/4′ down from both ends of the thread.
Now make the ornaments by making an ornament “sandwich”.
Begin by laying the ornaments flat on a table, two pieces of paper per ornament on top of each other.
Place the bottom of the hanger (with the circle in the middle of the ornament.
Glue the ornaments together with the thread inside and the two ends with the knot outside the top of the ornament.
Press gently for glue to adhere.
The ornament is now ready to hang.
Just like arranging flowers, arrange the branches in the vase with different lengths of branches.
Now adjust the height of the branches as needed by clipping the ends of the branches.
Hang the ornaments on the tree. this is when the length of the hanger may need to be adjusted.
If the length of the hanger needs to be tweaked so the ornament hangs straight simply make a double knot below the existing knot and cut off the first knot.
As with most crafts, an odd number of ornaments works well!

Ornament Tip: Shorter ornament hangers work better as the ornaments are light weight. Doubling up the paper and making short ornament thread hangers helps the ornaments stay where placed.