Halloween Paper Twist Trees

In an effort to shake off a creative slump I’ve been purging my crafty stash and this is the first project using the piles and piles of paper twists that have been sitting on the floor since the day I bought them, for a steal I might add.  I used black, keeping in the spirit of Halloween, but you could use any color to create a holiday theme or to match your décor.

Supplies

• black paper twists (I used one 12’ roll for this tree.)
• hot glue gun
• scissors
• electrical tape
• plastic bottle lids
• beads

Directions

I started out by cutting the paper roll into 12 inch sections.  I also went ahead and cut off pieces of the tape to make things easier.

Next is the fun part, just start taping the twists together until you’ve got a pretty good trunk started.

Now work your way up the trunk, twisting and taping together the paper.

To make the branches, unroll a twist, cut down the length of the unrolled paper-creating a Y, and then re- twist the two new branches.  If you want your branches to be different try cutting the unrolled twist into thirds or fourths of varying length before rolling them back up.  Just keep in mind you don’t want to split it up so much that you have nothing left to twist up.

It is a little time consuming but it still took me less than an hour to make the branches on this tree.

Once you’re done you’ve got to work on a base.  Now, I toyed with the idea of putting this into some kind of cup, but when I couldn’t find what I was looking for I decided to just use old plastic caps and create a stand instead.

Start off with a small lid and hot glue your trunk to the top of it.  I tried to glue it to the inside of the lid but it wouldn’t hold.  I went ahead and wrapped tape around this first lid but you can wait until all of them are in place before wrapping it.

First it was a soda lid and then came the PowerAde lid.

Finally I added on a lid from a container of pectin and then began wrapping them all with electric tape.

In a rush to use up some more of my stash I added little black nubbins (Is that a word?) to the trunk.  I think it would’ve been just as well without them.  I also think it’d have been a better idea to go ahead and tape up the entire trunk.

And there you have it, a paper twist tree perfect to incorporate into your Halloween vignettes.  If the electrical tape bothers you, like it does me, try holding the twists together with rubber bands and then carefully gluing it together with a hot glue gun, one branch at a time.

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