I Pinned It. Let’s Do It!: Half-Circle Christmas Trees

My good friend (and most excellent crafting buddy) Serina is planning periodic get togethers with our group of friends to force us to live out our Pinterest fantasies. Admit it – you have accumulated a backlog of “to do” projects on your Pinterest boards. Am I right? Whether it’s the Oreo-chocolate chip cookie-brownie you intend to bake and serve with ice cream and syrup or a series of picture frames you intend to fill with maps of your favorite vacation cities, you probably aren’t making the most out of your Pinterest pins. For me, my boards tend to be a hoarding ground for good ideas. I pin them, and they sit there. Until now.

As a new addition to my growing blog, I am going to periodically share projects that are inspired by a video, tutorial or design that I either “liked,” “pinned” or “repinned” on one of my Pinterest Boards. I’ll share both the project and Pinterest pin that inspired it. I’ll call these entries “I Pinned It. Let’s Do It!” Let’s get started.

Here’s my Pinterest-inspired project:

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And here’s the Pinterest post that inspired it:

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Tips, Tricks and Reminders:

The perfect half-circle

The folded Christmas tree starts with a half circle. Rather than punch a circle and then cut it in half, I decided to cut my half circles off the side of the card stock. I marked the back of my 2-1/2″ Circle punch with two pencil marks at the half-way point. Easy to line up to make a whole mess of half-circles.

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I also marked the center of the circle diameter (Wow! Look at me, showing off my advanced math skills by using fancy geometry terms!):

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Let the folding begin! Follow the tutorial provided in the Pinterest link above to make your Christmas trees. Easy as can be!

Find What You Need in the Stamps You Have

After I folded my Christmas trees, I needed a tree base to ground my trees. I looked through all my stamp sets and found this birthday candle in Create a Cupcake. That slender shape was exactly what I needed. I stamped three of them, snipped them out and glued them to the base of the folded tree. Voila! The perfect tree stump for this adorable tree.
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The Embossing Effect

I know you were looking at the cute Christmas trees above. While you were busy adoring the trees, did you notice the embossing effect surrounding the sentiment at the base of the card? Here’s how I completed that look:

  • I stamped the “Happy Christmas” sentiment at the base of the card stock.
  • I lined up the image on my Simply Scored Scoring Tool and embossed the score marks with my scoring tool.
  • I then flipped the card stock over and re-scored the lines, pushing the lines the other way. Easy step for a great effect!

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And don’t forget the envelope! I covered the envelope flap with the same DSP and added a “Do Not Open Til Christmas” seal to pull it all together:
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Stamp sets: More Merry Messages, Bring on the Cake Papers: Riding Hood Red, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Festival of Prints Designer Series Paper Stack Inks: Riding Hood Red Accessories: Pearl Basic Jewels, 2-1/2″ Circle Punch, 1″ Circle Punch, 1-3/8″ Circle punch, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Medium Envelope (Very Vanilla)

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Brian

21 Comments

  1. I love this sweet card! Love the red w/crumb cake! Love the red trees! (red loves me)
    I have this tree template in a Circle. Not a half, and I’ve never been able to figure the darn thing out! I’ll check out our link and finally will be able to enjoy these folded trees!

    • Yay! My guess is the first step if your template is “fold the circle in half…”? I think these trees are super-cute. I started to give a step-by-step, but this person did such a nice job. 🙂

  2. This is adorable! What a wonderful idea for DSP that has two gorgeous sides and you can’t make up your mind which side to use 🙂 I am going to try this! Thanks for the inspiration 🙂 Have a great day!

  3. Love, love, love this!

  4. Awesome!!!!!

  5. I think I’ll go make 20 of these right now and add them to my CCard stash. Thank you. I love the color combo of RR, CC and VV

  6. What a great idea!! Thanks!! I check out your blog every day!! Its in my faves 🙂

  7. Love this card. I ‘pinned’ it immediately!

  8. Well..I have made eleventy dozen of these cute things already . What is so odd is I have both of the dsp papers you and the teacher were using. Love these kind of projects . Thank you for this Mr. Wizard … Also I do a lot of OWH (OPERATION WRITE HOME) and for anyone that may be thinking of that or the christmas card mail for the troops …no glitter! Like the embossing at the bottom . Just think how neat that`s gonna be on my new trimmer that I ordered from you …. Lucky me!!! Will be back later .

  9. this is such a great coincidence–I have that little tree sitting on my desk–a friend brought it to me from a winter in Yuma, AZ–and I’ve been planningto use it in a demo–and now I will for sure. And I really like the way you did the embossed lines around the phrase. Thanks so much!!

  10. Wow! Neat and so easy! I am going to try this today! Thanks Brian

  11. Great card, Brian! Love the DSP and the scored lines at the bottom. The pearls are perfect too.

  12. Your card is adoreable!!! I Love the colors. It is so fresh and clean. I LOVE it.

  13. Great idea, Brian! I love the trees and your whole composition of the card. TFS…Kathy Liu

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  14. Yay … it’s perfect Brian!!!

  15. I LOVE your projects Brian. I’m a world away down-under in a little country called New Zealand and your daily blogs keep me motivated to get my stamping supplies out and create. I’ve been looking for something simple to do with my work colleagues for a Christmas get-together and this is it. Thank you.

  16. well the Festival of Prints really is perfect for these little trees since the print patterns are small and good for card making …These little trees are fun ..they are sort of like Tribbles out of Star Trek . ….Thanks Brian …I have enjoyed your Pinterest choice and the project you gave us today .

  17. Loving this DSP…wonderful card!!! Looks like yiur method is much easier…TFS!

  18. Love this one! I look forward to trying it. Thanks for the cool idea.

  19. Another awesome card, Brian! I really enjoy the tips and tricks you show us. The embossed lines really add a lot to the card and I was wondering how you did it. Thanks for sharing that tip.

  20. Okay, bad boy. You’ve given me something else to PIN! I don’t have that circle punch yet….so it’ll have to wait awhile before I make the tree…but make it, I will!! –Terri

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