I love decorating my home for the holidays and especially placing handmade treasures here and there throughout the house. I've had this tree in mind for quite some time and was happy to finally get it made EARLY for the upcoming holidays!
I started with Cornet Refills -- they are a very sturdy rigid cardboard cones about 6-3/4" tall and 3" in diameter at the wide base. Although most people use these in the traditional "V" format, as a cup or vase to hold flowers or party favors, I liked the idea of turning it upside down and using it for a tree!
To cover it, I stamped Aged Sheet Music ScrapBlock onto Neenah Classic Cream cardstock with Brilliance Graphite Black ink. I found this ink covered this detailed large stamp very well. You'll only need one piece of 8-1/2" x 11" stamped cardstock to cover the tree. Here's how I stamped mine:
You don't have to try and line up the 6-inch ScrapBlock in a repeating pattern since you'll be cutting it into strips later. That's why I just stamped parts of the ScrapBlock on what would have been leftover/unused cardstock (on the right). Then I cut the sheet into 1" x 3" strips and sponged each one with Adirondack Espresso ink, using Ranger's Ink Blending Tool, just to give a worn look:
Save any small pieces you may have left over, to adhere to the bottom of the cornet as a base layer, so the cornet's cardboard doesn't show thru where your strips may not meet. I curled the bottom ends of each strip before adhering them.
Working from the bottom, up, use your favorite liquid glue to adhere the strips to the cornet. Wrapping each layer with a rubber band as you complete it, will help hold the cardstock in place while it dries. I only did three layers/tiers on my tree, but you could stamp more cardstock and add more layers, if you wish.
After the strips were all glued on the tree, I edged each strip with Star Dust Stickles. For some tree decorations, I used Star Nestabilities dies to cut and emboss stars from Memory Box Dill and Granny Smith cardstock.
One thing I love to do with the white core Memory Box cardstock is sand die cut shapes (using a sanding block) -- it really brings out the embossing and I love the worn look. (My sanding block has obviously seen better days -- I also use it to sand hardware to take off the finish if it's too shiny. But hey, it still works fine!). The stars were adhered with dimensional foam tape to the tree. I also used felt poinsettias and leaves for some decorations, along with some green pom-pom trim (mine is from Maya Road).
A larger sanded Dill star was attached to the top of the tree with curled wire. One end of the wire is sandwiched between two star die-cuts.
To attach the star to the tree, I punched a 1-inch circle of stamped cardstock and then trimmed it down just a bit (a 3/4" circle punch was a bit too small), then threaded the other end of the curled wire through it and taped it to the underside.
Then the circle was attached to the top of the cornet with liquid glue. Placing some trim at the top of the tree will help hide glued seam.
The final touch was this cranberry bird -- afterall, those musical notes should be coming from somewhere, so this pretty bird is the source! I stamped Victorian Pattern backgrounder onto more Neenah Cream cardstock with Adirondack Cranberry dye ink and then die cut the cardstock with the two smallest sizes of Spellbinders new Nested Bird die. I trimmed the beak off the smallest bird, inked it with more Cranberry ink and used it for the larger bird's wing.
I also cut the large bird out of Craft-A-Board and glued it to the back of my stamped bird, to make it more sturdy. The Spellbinders dies cut this board with ease and I like that it's a soft white color instead of the traditional gray chipboard color.
I hope you'll give this holiday decor a try -- it will be a beautiful accent to a Christmas brunch or dinner table or as a nice accent for your mantle or entry table!