Rudolph day extra.

Our friend Maureen who hosts the Rudolph day Challenge on 25th of each month, is, this year, offering an extra challenge for anyone who has entered every month from January to November this year. As I qualify for that, I thought I would share a little Christmas project that I managed to finish this week. It is this Christmas tree.

I bought the cutting file from svgcuts, and found there were 18 sections to the tree itself, and a further 10 sections to make the base plus sixteen decorative panels to go on the base, and two layers for the star on the top! So it took a lot of card, but fortunately I had three huge sheets of light-weight green card in my cupboard that I bought for something last year and didn't use, and they were just enough for the tree. Of course, I cut it all out using my silhouette cameo machine.

Included with the cutting files was a pdf showing which lines were mountain folds, and which were valleys, and also showed which tabs could be inked. I decided I would ink them and used a new pad of DI picket fence. I am glad I did, because it helped me to see which tabs should be glued on the outside, and which should tuck inside and be glued later.

There was a 59 minute tutorial video for the assembly of the pieces, and without that I might not have managed it!

It was a fiddle to do, especially for the last joins on the tree, but it did go together very well, and was a very clever piece of design work. 

The original had a single candle lamp inside it, though they recommended replacing the bulb with a brighter LED one, but it did say in the instructions that a string of 100 LED mini-lights would also be suitable, and that is what I had to use. I took my photo when all the main lights in the room were on so you can't see them twinkling, but in a darker spot it is very pretty when it is lit up. There are lots of holes for the lights to shine through, and also holes for inserting plastic 'pretend lights', which apparently are intended for replacements in ceramic Christmas trees? I bought a pack of 100 from Amazon, and they are a nice extra touch. This second photo shows the lights better, and the base.

So now I will link this up at Scraps of life by Scrappymo. before you know it, it will be time to post our January cards. Why not make a new year's resolution to join in with us.