Paper Cups Christmas Tree

The other day when we were at Starbucks, I saw one of their decorations in their store. It looks like a white tree made out of thick strips of paper. I didn't take a closer look at it but it looks interesting to me and had given me an idea. I thought I'll try to make a similar Christmas Tree with my son and well, it became my personal favourite now. Oh, I did help with curling here because it will take him ages to curl all the strips.

Christmas is around the corner. If you do not have a Christmas tree at home, why not make it to add it a bit of festive feel?

Materials needed:

• 10 Paper Cups
• 1 Rubber Band
• 1 (Balloon) Stick
• 2 Stickers of the same size and shape
• Some Paper Clay or any Self Dry Clay

Tools needed:

• Scissors
• Pencil
• Thick Cloth

How to do it:

1. Measure 0.5cm from the rim of the cup and draw around it.
2. Increase the measurement by 0.5cm for the next cup, ie, Cup No. 2 will be 1cm, No.3 - 1.5cm, No.4 - 2cm and so on.
3. Cut the rim according to the line drew above. Now all the cups will be of different height.
4. Label the cups with the tallest cup as 10 and the shortest cup as 1.
5. Have a thick cloth or folded cloth on your table.
6. Place a cup on the cloth, bottom down.
7. Position the tip of the pencil to the middle of the cup.
8. Pierce the cup to get a hole but don't pierce the pencil through as the hole may be too big.
9. Cut the cup in strips. Don't have to worry about the thickness. Irregular thickness looks nicer in my opinion.
10. Curl the strips using the stick or pencil *hardest part for kids*.
11. Tie a rubber band round the stick to use it as a 'stopper' to prevent the cups from slipping down.
12. Position it 12cm from the base of the stick.
13. Pierce the top of the stick through the cup with the base facing outwards, starting from No. 10, leaving a bit of space in between 2 cups.
14. Put aside.
15. Roll the clay to form a ball, flatten the base slightly.
16. Push the stick with the cups into the base to hold it.
17. Stick on the stickers, back to back, between the tip of the stick or alternatively, you can use cut out pictures and stick with double-sided tape.
18. Cut off excess stick.
19. Now you have your own Christmas Tree!

Note:
I wrapped the dried clay with flower paper (whatever you call that). You can leave it as it is or paint it if you like.

* Boy at Work *

* Our Christmas Tree *