Oh Christmas Trees!

I'm sure that just about everybody making one of these Heirloom Christmas Trees from SVGCuts has a memory of one of the ceramic Christmas in their home when they were growing up.  My grandmother made some of the most amazing ceramics projects and we had a beautiful ceramic tree with toys around the base that I can remember from 30+ years ago. I couldn't wait to make a paper version for myself!

I'll try to keep this post relatively short, but include some details on what I did differently.  I really like the idea of a tree trunk for the base, so I used an inked embossing folder to run the base panels through my Cuttlebug.  I used some lightly glittered green cardstock for the tree which adds a pretty sparkle, and popped on some red bird bulbs in place of clear to add to the woodland character I was going for. 

I really wanted my star to have a little glow to it, but was planning on using the candle lamp as my light source, so had to get creative with how I'd throw some light out the top. I added vellum to the backside of both of the star pieces and inserted a tiny little piece, probably only about 1/4" long from a drinking straw in the hopes that some light would carry upwards.  It worked! It's not terribly bright, but it does give the star a nice glow I think.

Next up, a red tree for a family member who just adores the color red.  I think she's going to love it!

I made a a white glitter star using Tim Holt's Dimensional Stars thinlit die. I cut out two of them and glued them back to back to get one very dimensional star.

After making the trees, I kept thinking about adding some toys under them to mimic the tree my grandmother made so many years ago. Then an idea hit.  

I couldn't have a tree without a train!

Yes, it's a real working train and a relatively inexpensive one at that!  I found this Westminster Train in a Tin on Amazon and had to give it a try. It's remarkably powerful for a little battery-operated train. I was holding off on this blog post until my train arrived and once it did, I realized that the track wouldn't go over the cord from the candle lamp! So I built a little tunnel that I could lay the cord over top of and the train goes right underneath. It was a quick little project that I didn't even use my cutting machine to do. I'll definitely be dressing it up at some point, but it's good enough for now. I was in a hurry to test out my train!

I have one or two more trees to make, but now that I've done a few, they should go together pretty quickly.  

Thanks for stopping by!