Paper Pohutukawa Flower Christmas Tree Ornament

The Pohutukawa trees blossom with flaming red flowers in December, so they have become the Christmas flower in New Zealand.

Make Pohutukawa flowers

1. Cut 8 or more red strips.

2.Form each strip into a ring and glue the ends.
3.Flatten each red ring.
4.Do the same thing with 4 or more green strips to form the leaves.
5.Curl one end of each yellow strip around a skewer, toothpick, or nail.

Assemble the flowers

1.Glue a yellow strip between two red petals. Make sure the spiral sticks out past the red petals.
2.Glue 4 or more red petals together for each flower.
3.Glue two green leaves on the outside edges of each flower.
4.Glue the two flowers together.

Form the strip into a ring. Glue the ends of the ring together.

Press the ring to flatten it into a leaf or petal shape.

Crafts > Crafts for Adults by Season > 15 Paper Christmas Tree Ornaments > Paper Pohutukawa Christmas Tree Ornament

If you plan for a classroom of kids to make these, cut out strips of paper with a paper cutter ahead of time, then in class, all the kids have to do is fold and glue them. If you don’t have a paper cutter, use lined notebook paper as a guide, but cut on every other line rather than every line, since the strips would be too narrow if you cut every line. Save time by cutting 3-4 sheets of paper at a time with the same effort as cutting one. You do need a good pair of scissors to do this. The sheets of paper do tend to slide, so readjust the sheets after every few cuts.