Toilet Paper Tube Trees

With five people in our home, we go through a lot of toilet paper. And while it drives my husband crazy, I tend to hoard empty toilet paper tubes.  Why?  Because they are so handy for crafting!!  We've used them for everything from safari binoculars to beads for stringing (on huge necklaces). 

This time, we're making holiday trees!!  Here's how we did it.

1) Corral a bunch of empty toilet paper tubes.

2) Paint the inside of all the tubes green (we skipped this step and it doesn't look nearly as nice).

3) Decorate the outsides in various manners - coat them in mod podge and glitter, decoupage on green tissue paper or wrapping paper.  Or if you're in a big hurry, just coat them in green paint and get on with it.

4) Let all tubes dry thoroughly.

5) If any tubes have gotten squashed, roll them gently until they round out again.

6) This is the part that made my liberal-arts brain hurt a little - stack tubes in rows, adding 1 tube to each row until you run out.  I had to divide my stack between 3 kids, so doing the math made me a little dizzy.

7) Hot glue the bottom row together.

8) Attach next row by hot gluing tubes both to the row below and to each other.

9) Embellish! (Add stickers, glue on tiny ornaments, cover the ends with colored tissue paper - what ever your imagination dictates). 

We left our trees fairly plain and they sit on each child's night-stand guarded by his brand new nutcracker. 

If your trees will be getting a lot of use, or if you used a bunch of glitter, consider giving each a coat of spray-on acrylic sealant. 

Happy holidays everyone!!