Lolly Stick Suncatcher Christmas Trees

Looking for frugal & fun decorations for kids to make? These Suncatcher Christmas Trees are simple & thrifty to make, & look beautiful in a window or with all the Christmas lights behind them on a tree.


 I love a craft that uses up those odds & ends leftover from previous crafting fun & these trees do just that. Each coloured panel only uses a small amount of paper & the decorations for the tree can be made from any odd buttons or beads you have lying around.


To make our Suncatcher Trees we used:
5 Lolly/popsicle sticks of the same length
1 Large lolly stick.
Scraps of coloured tissue paper
Glue gun & Glue stick
Beads, buttons etc decorate the tree

We started by making a simple triangle shape which we stuck together using a glue gun. To create the panels inside the tree we cut the ends off two lolly sticks & glued the sticks across our triangular frame, securing them again with the glue gun. For our tree trunk we cut a small section of the larger lolly stick & glued to the base. (If don't have a larger lolly stick a section of thick card would work just as well.)  Now we were ready to add some colour.


We had quite a collection of odd scraps of tissue paper which were perfect for this. Before we added them to the sticks we roughly measured how much of the paper we needed & cut the strips out. You really don't need much at all. We attached the paper using a glue stick & then trimmed off any excess paper at the sides.

What's great about this is that it doesn't really matter how you place the tissue paper on the sticks. You can use as many colours as you wish & layer them in different ways, the effect is always beautiful. The layered tissue paper looks so pretty with the light shining behind it.


When we'd finished adding our tissue paper we stuck a star on the top of the tree & attached a length of red ribbon so we could hang our trees up.


On some of the trees we added a few decorations using old beads, buttons & pipe cleaners, but they look just as beautiful without the embellishments.


I love how thrifty these trees to make & how pretty they look. Older children could easily build the tree frame with the lolly sticks themselves, & younger children could freely decorate the ready made frame.



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