Day 29 at Beccy's Place - Z is for Zig Zag

  I'm playing along with the

Ninth Annual Month Of Holiday Cards

at

Beccy's Place

I'm not colouring at the moment but I am working on Christmas craft projects for creative little hands around our neighbourhood ... the endless months of Covid-19 lockdowns has brought our community much closer and I look forward to sharing more crafty adventures with them over the coming weekends and school holidays now that restrictions have eased.

Beccy's prompt for Day 29 is the letter "Z"

(Beccy's post with "Z" inspiration words and amazing

Z-fold cards to inspire are HERE)

My "Z" kids Christmas activity kit is for a Zig Zag Christmas Tree Ornament.  The paper strips Zig and Zag, looping across each other to form a cute dimensional tree.

This Zig Zag Christmas Tree ornament uses seven strips of green cardstock.  I started with 12" x 12" sheets, cutting eight 12" x 1 1/2" strips from each sheet.  Each sheet makes two trees, with a strip spare, so when I cut four sheets, I had enough strips for 9 trees with one only 6" x 1 1/2" strip leftover.

Four strips are needed to make one tree, cut one strip at 9" (making a 9" and 3" strip), one to 8" (making an 8" and 4" strip), one to 7" (making a 7" and 5" strip) and the last one to 6" (making two 6" strips, one for now, one for making another tree).  Punch a 1/8" hole at the centre of each strip (this one is more challenging to align, so I punched this on each strip for the kits) then punch 1/8" holes 3/8" from the end of each strip.  (I punched several sets at both ends, others I left because little hands love using my plier-style punches.)

Take a pipe cleaner and make a loop for the base of the tree.

Line up the paper strips, largest to smallest.

Take the largest (9") strip, threading the pipe cleaner through the end hole, loop the strip back toward the pipe cleaner, thread the pipe cleaner through the middle hole, loop the strip back and thread the pipe cleaner through the last end hole.  This makes the bottom layer of the tree.  Gently push these zig zag loops down to the bottom of the pipe cleaner.  Thread on two beads then take the next strip (8") and thread as before (through end hole, loop strip back, thread through middle hole, loop strip back, thread through the other end hole), gently pushing down to against the beads.  Continue adding beads and smaller strips until the last one has been added.  I only put single beads between the top three layers as they looked too far apart with two.

Thread a single bead to top the tree, gently push the layers down together then twist the pipe cleaner to make a loop above the top bead, trimming off the excess.  Finish off the ornament by tying a piece of ribbon so that the ornament can be hung on the Christmas Tree, on a cheery window garland or even on a handy hook on the wall.

*** INGREDIENTS ***

cardstock - cut into strips - detailed above

pipe cleaner - one per tree ornament

pony beads - 11-15

ribbon / twine - loop to hang the ornament

*** REFERENCE ***

This project was inspired by the "Paper Strips Christmas Tree" post on the "funEZcrafts" blog HERE.