Easy Kid-Made Tree Decorations!

Every year The Art Project creates a tree for Memphis’ Enchanted Forest to benefit LeBonheur’s Children Hospital! We always love finding new uses for unwanted kids paintings! These Kid-Made Tree Decorations work great if you have small children at home and don’t want them breaking your precious ornaments. They’ll also have a blast getting in on the fun.

Paper Tinsel

What You’ll Need:

• Painted paper

• Scissors

• String

1. Fold paper in half. Cut into strips (ours were about 1/4” wide, but feel free to choose width).

2. Fold paper around a piece of string and string on your tree. We found it easiest to work in small sections.

SELF PORTRAIT ORNAMENTS

What You’ll Need:

• Paper puncher in fun shapes

• Watercolor paper (we like 140 lb weight)

• Permanent markers

• Watercolor paints/brushes

• Hole puncher

• Ribbon

1. Punch shapes out of watercolor paper and punch a hole in the top.

2. Have children draw a self portrait on punched out paper using a permanent marker.

3. Paint over the self portrait using watercolor paints. The watercolor will resist the permanent markers.

4. Allow paper to dry & tie a ribbon in the top.

Other fun ways to use kids artwork to decorate your tree:

Use kids artwork as wrapping paper!

Cut a star out of cardboard and lets kids splatter paint Jackson Pollock style. We attached the star to the tree using a recycled toilet paper cardboard tube.