The Christmas tree nature craft you’ll ooo and aaah over!

With only weeks until Christmas, you’d be forgiven if you were already over the pre-Christmas hype.

That feeling of depleted festive cheer doesn’t often reach me unless I’m wading through the sea of desperate and despairing shoppers who left all their Christmas shopping until the last minute.

Never fear, I’m still in a festive mood. I haven’t put away my crafty fingers just yet. I have a couple yet to unveil.  This layered leaves Christmas tree was created with inspiration from This heart of Mine Blog and her beautiful felt Christmas Tree Ornaments.

With any activity that requires replacing regular craft materials with nature, I usually have to change the instructions slightly and this craft was no exception. This craft may look complicated but this natural Christmas tree nature craft easy enough for your children to make!

Layered Leaves Christmas Tree nature craft

What you’ll need:

• A hole punch
• A stick (about the same size thickness as the holes punched out of the hole punch. Slightly thicker at one end is perfect too.
• String
• Hole punched star
• Optional printable size guide (from This Heart of Mine)
• Leaves, lots and lots of colourful leaves!

How to make this Christmas Tree Nature Craft

1.  Cut the leaves into all different square sizes. I was lazy and just cut them out as different sizes from large to small but Heart of Mine Blog has a helpful template that you can use to get the perfect sizes if you want to be precise.
2. Once you’ve cut out all the squares, punch a hole through the middle of each square. If your square is too large to get your hole punch into the middle, you can gently bend the leaf  and squish it into the hole punch further. 
3. Using a stick, that’s slightly thicker at one end, thread the square leaves over the thinner section of the stick (largest to smallest squares) and let them fall and sit on the thickest part of the stick to secure them. Make sure you set the squares from each other as you thread them on. 
4. You may need to cut or break the stick so that you only have about an inch of stick left at the top. Tie on the string and then stick on the leaf star. If I had my time again, I would have used a really dry leaf for the star cut out. Then it wouldn’t curl so much in in the following days.

Here’s the finished layered leaves Christmas tree

Here it is a couple of days later. Although the colour has dulled, the curling of the leaves gives it such splendid character. I love natural decorations like this strung up around our home, or on the tree. There’s something beautiful about nature Christmas crafts.

I hope you and your children are in a festive mood and  embracing the festivities this season brings. If you enjoyed this Christmas tree nature craft you might like this leaf christmas craft too!

Want to scroll Mother Natured posts in pictures? Take a look at the Mother Natured Pinterest board. There’s plenty of other wonderful nature craft and nature play inspiration there too.