Magazine Christmas Tree - A Few Small Adventures

Last week my daughter Zoë and I were grocery shopping when she noticed a huge pile of magazines offered by the supermarket. For some reason (maybe because they were the Christmas edition), they reminded me of the old magazine Christmas trees we made in primary school. So feeling a little nostalgic, Zoë (5) and I decided to make one. My son Max (7) also got excited by the idea and joined in the fun.

Here’s how we did it:

Step one | Choose your magazine. The thicker the magazine, the fuller your tree will be. The magazine we used had 160 pages.

Step two | Open the magazine to the first page (I find leaving the cover unfolded at the beginning helps weigh down the pages). Fold the top corner of the page to the middle of the magazine, creating a triangle shape.

Step three | Bring the folded edge of your triangle to the middle of the magazine, to form another triangle.

Step four | Tuck the overhanging point of the page inside the triangle. This will give the tree a nice flat bottom. Zoë and Max found this step a little tricky and just folded the overhanging point up without tucking it in.

Step five | Repeat the previous three steps until every page of the magazine has been folded, including both the front and back covers.

Step six | Once the folding is complete, join the front and back covers together using sticky tape or staples. This will give the tree its conical shape.

Step eight | Decorate your tree! We used tissue paper stars and glitter. The stars we made with a star shaped punch. We used a glue stick to attach both the stars and glitter. You can also paint the tree with poster paint or spray paint. The star on top of the tree is made from computer paper, with a piece of magazine or tissue paper glued on top.