Looking for a quick, cheap and easy Christmas Decoration idea? I've made these little sequin Christmas trees to go on our mantelpiece this year with things we already had making my total cost £0 -  Absolute bargain! (Even if you have to buy a few bits to try them, nothing needed is expensive)

This is what you need:

• Sequins
• Mod Podge or PVA
• Acetate (mine is from this pad of fairly thin acetate from back in the day - who remembers overhead projectors? You could use any clear plastic, even old packaging will work I think)
• Scissors
• Paint brush
• Glue Gun
• Scrap paper
• Compass (for drawing a circle not finding your way north!)

Cut a quarter circle template from scrap paper.

The radius of the circle will be pretty much the height of the finished tree. For the smaller trees mine was 14cm and for the larger one 21cm.

Then use the paper template to cut the shape from the acetate. I just held the paper underneath and cut round it. I didn't have anything that would write on the acetate and didn't want marks on it anyway. Turns out acetate is slightly difficult to photograph, what with it being clear and all!

Roll the acetate into a cone shape and give the top a little squidge just to help it hold it's shape.

Now glue down the long edge with the glue gun and press to form the cone. There will be an overlap, mine was about an inch.

This is a little bit of a fiddle, you have to be pretty quick as the glue sets quite rapidly. That's why I found rolling the cone first, squiding the top etc made it much easier. Some of my cones were prettier than others but it doesn't have to be perfect, it's all about to get covered up anyway. 

The most important thing is that the bottom is flat so the tree stands nicely, if yours doesn't you can trim it with scissors at this stage.

Now the fun bit. Paint a good thick layer of Mod Podge, I found it easier to do a section at a time.

Then sprinkle with sequins.

Keep glueing and sprinkling over the whole tree.

Leave it to dry, it takes a couple of hours. Give it a gentle shake to get rid of any loose sequins, then you can fill in any gaps that bother you with a dab of glue and an extra sequin or two.

They are much more sparkly than I was able to catch in a photo. That little green flare was just good luck, I didn't add it on afterwards! 

They catch the light beautifully and are really shimmery.

The acetate is flexible so these little trees are not going to last forever. If you squish them, sit on them or the dog gets hold of them a sequins or two will drop off.

However if you put them away carefully in January I think you could get a few years out of them no problem. Ideal if you are one of those people who has a different colour scheme every few years!

I was thinking tiny little seed beads might work too, instead of the sequins. I think buttons would be too heavy, but to be honest the super sparkliness of these sequins is so lovely I've not ended up trying anything else.

Julie

I'll be linking this project up at these link ups