Here's my Christmas tree. Every year I make additional pictures to hang on it. One day the pictures are going to completely cover the tree and I'll need a bigger one! My tree is kind of scraggly but I love it! It's like a scrapbook and I enjoy looking at the pictures one by one as I hang it up. I especially love the pictures of the kids when they were small- so cute!
It's easy to make your own memorabilia Christmas tree. I'm sure you have materials in your home you can use. What's fun is if you let the kids create their very own keepsakes! Basic materials needed are: scissors, colored paper, glue, string and of course the picture! This is the easiest one to make. Just cut out different shapes from colored paper (Christmas trees, stars, houses, even a simple square!) then decorate it. You can either glue the picture in front or make a hole and attach the picture to the back.
It would be nice to put some details at the back, like the date the picture was taken, and who made the frame and when. Another great thing to put is a blessing for the year so that your pictures will be like prayers of praise to God and a great gift for the birthday celebrant!
Of course there are a lot of scrapbooking materials you can use for this project. I like making a basic frame out of cardboard and covering it up with either cloth or paper, then decorating it with printed paper or cut outs. I've also use tongue depressors to make a frame, painted it and used rubber stamps to decorate it.
Above see one of my favorites- I pasted red cloth on cardstock, cut out an oval frame, then embroidered it and added cloth squares. Of course, what makes it my favorite is the little boy in the center! He's in a traditional filipino costume. This tree will start many a conversation and it's particularly nice to decorate the tree with pictures of grandparents and us parents when WE were young!
Here's a picture of my mom and my sister. If your pictures are too precious to cut up, it's best to duplicate it and cut up the duplicates!If you're the type who hates trees that aren't color coordinated, you can also coordinate the colors of your frames like my sister Meldy did. She used red and black cardstock, put black and white pictures, added red shiny embellishments on her tree. Hers is a more formal version that fits her well put together house! I should have taken a picture of the tree but you can see a bit of it behind my Christmas family photo which I'll probably add to my tree next year!
