Origami Christmas Trees

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Do you remember the origami trees we made while working on the Oregon Little Passports journal? We turned them into little Christmas trees!

Origami Christmas Trees

Materials:

• origami paper (we used this patterned origami paper and this pack of brights)
• white glue
• yellow cardstock
• mini star punch
• cork
• brown paint
• Stickles

Steps:

Fold the origami paper to make a tree. Begin by folding the paper in half vertically, horizontally, and on both diagonals, opening after each fold. 

Rotate the paper so that it looks like a diamond instead of a square. Pull the top, left, and right corners toward the bottom corner, collapsing the sides in to form a folded square.

Your square will have four triangular 'flaps' -  two on each side. Take one flap and press it open as shown. 

Repeat the process with all four flaps. It will look like this. 

Fold back the portion below the triangle (yellow in the photo above), repeating on all sides. When you are done, it looks like this. 

This is the same thing, opened up. 

When you get to this point, add glue along the inside and press each side together. This will form your tree.

While the tree is drying, use a serrated knife to cut a cork for the tree trunk. If you start with 6" square origami paper like we did, you'll want to cut your cork into fourths or thirds. Any larger and it's out of proportion with the rest of the tree. Paint the trimmed cork brown and set it aside to dry. 

Punch four identical stars from the yellow cardstock. Fold each in half and glue all four pieces together to form a dimensional star. It's tricky to get the small stars lined up, but older kids will manage it just fine. 

Use the Stickles to decorate the tree however you like. 

When everything is dry, glue the tree to the cork, then glue the star on top of the tree. Make more than one and put them together to make an adorable winter scene!