O Christmas Tree

Have you joined the Pinterest craze yet? I find so many ideas on there! The project I worked on today was inspired by this idea that I saw on Pinterest. She used nesting templates and a die cut machine; I decided to use the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge to cut my images. I thought it was much easier!

To start, I selected six different papers (2 pieces of each) in Christmas colors. (See the last of my stash of Cocoa Cafe papers?) I think all my papers are retired from previous catalogs. This is a great project to use them up!

I cut the scalloped circle 11 times on each paper, starting with 1" and increasing to 6" by 1/2-inch increments. I ended up with enough to make two trees.

When I had all my pieces cut, I sorted them by size and inked the edges with Cocoa ink.

The base of the tree is pretty simple - a 12" dowel rod and a cardboard base. I used part of a CTMH mailing box for my base. It didn't seem sturdy enough, so I reinforced it with some, let's say, creative items.

Hey - it worked!

Next came the fun part - making the tree! Starting with the largest (6") circle, I stacked three of each size all the way to the top of the dowel rod. To give the pieces a little separation, I tied a piece of grosgrain ribbon between each of the larger pieces (3" - 6"), then I switched to organdy ribbon for the smaller pieces since they could be a little closer together.

I topped my tree off with a 2" two-sided star, also cut on the Cricut.  Be sure to check out the other Art Philosophy Cricut creations on the linky party hosted by Lisa Stenz! You can find complete directions for the linky party {here}.