Holly-Day Wreath

Deck the halls with boughs of holly... Here is a clever way to decorate for Christmas and use up all those toilet paper tubes at the same time. (I'm not the only one who saves them, right?) This project idea comes from Look What You Can Make with Tubes.

Toilet Paper Tube Holly-Day Wreath by Mia, Age 3 1/2

Materials:

• metal hanger
• toilet paper tubes (we used 15)
• scissors
• glue
• pencil
• green paint
• paint brush
• green construction paper
• red tissue/crepe paper
• ribbon

Directions:

1. Bend a metal hanger to form a circle. (I did this part.)
2. Holding each toilet paper tube upright, use scissors to cut a horizontal slit in the middle, going no more than half way through the tube. (I did this part.)
3. Paint each tube green. We used acrylic paint and foam paint brushes. Allow paint to dry.
4. Cut holly leaves from green construction paper. An easy way to do this is to fold your paper into rectangles (say eighths) and then cut out the rectangles. Fold each rectangle in half like a hot dog (the long way), and use a pencil to draw two scallops on one side of the fold. Keeping the paper folded, cut on the line. Unfold the holly leaf. (I did this part.)
5. Tear or cut small pieces of red tissue paper (we used crepe paper) and crumple them up to make holly berries.
6. Assemble your wreath by pushing each toilet paper tube onto the metal hanger. Each one should hold nicely but you could add some glue if the slit is too big. Glue the holly leaves between the tunes. (This makes the wreath fuller and hides some of the metal hanger.) Glue the crumpled paper holly berries to the wreath. Once all the glue is dry, tie a bow to the top of the hanger. Now your wreath is ready to be hung.