These button Christmas trees can be made as tree ornaments or table toppers. Using a glue gun keeps the process quick and easy, but if you’d rather, you can thread your buttons together with a needle and metallic thread, the old fashioned way.
Skill Development: fine motor, colour sorting, size order, glue gun experience.
We have a rather large button collection here in my daycare, and we love using these buttons for crafting. My toddlers and preschoolers made these vintage button wreath ornaments one year, but I’ve been dying to make these stacked button Christmas trees with my older kids.
A glue gun makes it easy!
At first I thought we’d use a needle and thread to put our button trees together, but then it dawned on me that a glue gun would make the process much easier, so that’s what we did.
You may also like our button snowman Christmas cards.
Attaching the string
The only question was – how to attach the string at the top. I mean, if you were threading the buttons together, you’d have a thread leftover at the top to hang the ornaments with, but when you’re gluing your buttons together, that’s not the case.
Pony beads to the rescue!
By adding a pony bead to the top of our trees, we were able to slip some thread through the bead, and voila… a thread to hang it from. Plus, the bead doubles as a decorative topper for our button trees.
Kids have the best ideas…
The cool thing about crafting with kids, is they often have ideas of their own that are better than what I’ve come up with.
Hang them on the tree, OR…
I had hanging ornaments in mind for this craft, but the kids decided, completely on their own, that some of their button trees would be table toppers instead of hanging ornaments, so they glued an extra-large button to the base of their trees so they’d stand up without tipping over.
Wouldn’t it be fun to put one of these at each place setting at your Christmas dinner table? All of your guests will get to take their own little button Christmas tree home with them. Brilliant!
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Supplies:
Instructions:
Time needed: 30 minutes
How to Make a Button Christmas Tree (Glue Gun Method)
- Choose Your Buttons
Have your kids select 8-12 buttons in one colour family – i.e. various shades of blues/greens, various shades of pinks/purples. The buttons should vary in sizes from large to small.
For the trunk of the tree, have them select a few small brown buttons.
- Sort buttons by size
Lay both sets of buttons out on the table in order from largest to smallest.
- Glue buttons together
Using a low-heat glue gun, glue the buttons together, starting with the largest coloured button on the bottom, working upwards, finishing with the smallest buttons on top.
- Add a bead
Glue a pony bead to the very top button. A star or a heart is especially pretty, but even a regular pony bead will do.
- Attach the trunk
Glue the brown buttons together in order from biggest to smallest, and glue the trunk to the bottom of the button tree.
- For a Hanging Ornament:
If you’ll be hanging your ornament, slip a piece of metallic thread through the holes in the pony bead and secure with a knot
- For a Table Topper
If you’ll be using your button trees as table top decorations, glue an extra large button to the bottom of your tree trunk to provide a base for standing.
Aren’t these just the sweetest little Christmas trees? And what a great way to use up some of the buttons in your button bin.
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Jackie is a mom, wife, home daycare provider, and the creative spirit behind Happy Hooligans. She specializes in kids’ crafts and activities, easy recipes, and parenting. She began blogging in 2011, and today, Happy Hooligans inspires more than 2 million parents, caregivers and Early Years Professionals all over the globe.
