Magazine Christmas Tree Tutorial by Kate Palmer

If you have children it’s likely you’ve seen these come home from school around the Christmas season, magazine Christmas trees are a favourite of teachers the world over!  Now I’ve never made one of these before, but I wanted to give a magazine Christmas tree a try with a little Lindy’s twist.

 What I Used:

• Lindy’s Stamp Gang Products
  Starburst Sprays: Silent Night Silver & Steel Shimmer
  Glitter: Time Travel Teal, Shabby Turbine Teal, Steel Shimmer and Gag Me With A Spoon Gray
  Embossing Powder: Pop Rocks Purple and Aurora Amethyst
• Magazine with uncoated pages (ie no gloss)
• Christmas Garland or beads
• Wooden Stars
• XPress It Clear Gel Glue
• Derivan – Mixed Media Adhesive

 What I Did:

Begin with a magazine you are finished reading, it will work best if your magazine has uncoated (non-glossy) pages.  Tear off the covers and beginning with the first page, fold the top right corner in towards the spine.

Use your finger or a bone/plastic folder to make a crisp folded edge.

Fold the page one more time, taking the right side outer edge and folding towards the spine – make another crisp folded edge.

This will leave you with a little triangular ‘tail’ at the bottom, fold the tail up to make a straight edge – as you likely want a flat bottom on your tree.

I tucked this tail, under the previous folds to keep the tree neat.
 Once finished your tree should look like this and this is how many of them stay.

BUT a Lindy’s tree needs more bling,
so it’s time to decorate!

I started by spraying my tree with Starburst Sprays in Silent Night Silver & Steel Shimmer – go slowly only adding a little liquid at a time – as you don’t want your pages to warp from being too wet!

Wait until completely dry, then using a stringy glue like XPress It Clear Gel – draw strings of glue around the tree.  I’m wanting this to look like ropes of tinsel.

While the glue is still wet, sprinkle glitter over the top – I added both  Steel Shimmer and Gag Me With A Spoon Gray

While the ‘tinsel’ is drying, cut up a beaded Christmas garland – or you can use round beads. Dip the bead into glue and cover in glitter.

I used Time Travel Teal on the large balls,

and Shabby Turbine Teal,  on the smaller strands.
Place glitter coated balls on a nonstick surface until dry, this will create a slightly flatter side – which is useful when it comes to attaching the balls to the tree!

While all my other elements were drying I embossed a few small wooden stars using Pop Rocks Purple and Aurora Amethyst embossing powder.

Once all the elements were dry, I glued these onto the tree – this took the patience of a saint and was a bit fiddly, but I think the end result was worth it.

You can watch my whole process in the video below:

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season,