Looking for natural Christmas decoration ideas? Have you tried making dried leaf Christmas Trees? You can make them into Holiday ornaments, festive mobiles or garlands. They can even be attached to cardstock for natural Christmas Cards too!
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How to make leaf Christmas Trees
These are very simple crafts to make. You can make them as fancy or simple as you like. Here’s the basic process:
- Find, clean, and dry your leaves
- Take dry pressed leaves and cut into Christmas tree shapes (optional)
- Decorate your leaves to look like festive holiday trees
See, that’s so simple it almost didn’t even need to be said;)
How we made our Christmas Tree Leaves
The supplies we used:
We found some fat and pointed leaves that already had a natural tree shape to them. My daughter preferred we not cut these leaves and leave them in their natural shape. We kept the leaf stem attached to act as the Christmas Tree trunk.
The other leaf we cut into a typical Christmas tree shape. We left the stem intact again to serve as the tree trunk.
Using tacky glue, we attached sequins and ric rac (that zig zag sewing stuff Grandma used to sew onto your clothes) for ornaments and garland.
Alternative ways to decorate your leaf trees:
- You could cut the trees into tree shapes, discard the leaf stem, and glue on a small twig.
- You could paint the leaves a solid colour and decorate onto that.
- Using metallic markers, you could draw decorations like lights, garland, and ornaments onto the dried leaves. Or use the pens / markers to write festive words and greetings onto the leaf.
You could glue various crafty bits to be the leaf tree ornaments:
- pompoms, buttons, beads
- feathers, stickers, yarn
- pine cone pieces, dried flower petals, smaller leaves
What to do with your leaf Christmas Trees?
Now that you’ve made your leaf trees, how will you display them?
- Punch a hole into the leaf and string on a ribbon. Use this as an ornament on your own Holiday tree.
- Glue the decorated leaf onto a blank folded piece of card stock to make homemade Christmas cards.
- String a bunch of these leaves together for a natural, but festive rustic garland.
- Hand them down from a gnarly branch or piece of driftwood for a rustic and festive mobile. You might also hang them from the light fixture over your dining room table.
- Use them to decorate the Christmas dinner table, on guest’s plates, or on display in the center of the table among ice lanterns, and other natural Christmas decorations.
If you’re looking for more inspiration for leaf crafts or rustic holiday decor, check out:
- Finding inspiration for simple leaf art with kids
- Leaf art projects every crafter should try once!
- Wonderful Wintertime Frozen Sun Catchers
Hopefully you get an opportunity to do some leaf crafting this holiday season and making some natural christmas decorations like these leaf Christmas Trees is great motivation to pull out those dried leaved and craft tub.
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