Are there any Christmas specials that you watch on TV every year? For my family the answer to that is A Charlie Brown Christmas. Everything about it is just perfect – the story, the soundtrack, and the animation. These DIY cake toppers were inspired by the aluminum trees that surround the small evergreen that Charlie Brown and Linus pick. Since that tree has a happy home, why not give some love to the trees that, according to Linus, “fit the modern spirit”?

Materials: Various metallic scrapbook paper, silver crepe streamers, wooden skewers, hot glue gun, scissors, assorted circular objects (for tracing)
Step 1: For the silver crepe tree, cut a length of streamers in half lengthwise and cut the edge into a fringe.
Step 2: Hot glue the end of the fringe onto the wooden skewer, about 1 1/2″ down from the top (you can adjust this depending on how tall you want the tree to be).
Step 3: Wrap the fringe around the skewer several times and hot glue in place, trimming off the leftover fringe.
Step 4: Repeat step 2 and 3, working your way up the skewer. Be sure that each row slightly overlaps the previous one.
Step 5: Gently separate the fringes from each other, curling them outwards.

Step 6: For the simple cone tree, trace a circle onto metallic paper. For this tree, a a round ramekin was used.
Step 7: Cut out the circle and cut out a wedge as shown. The shape of your cone will depend on the size of the circle and the wedge you cut from it, so play around until you achieve a shape you’re happy with.
Step 8: Hot glue one side of the wedge and form into a cone shape.
Step 9: You should now have the basic cone – you can trim the bottom if the edges don’t quite match.
Step 10: Apply hot glue onto the top of a skewer.
Step 11: Place the cone onto the hot glue and let dry.

Step 12: Similar to the simple cone tree, cut three circles and cut wedges out of them. The tree picture used a jam jar lid for the circles.
Step 13: Hot glue one of the wedges into a cone.
Step 14: Cut small wedges out of the centre of the other two wedges – these will allow the finished cones to slide onto the skewer.
Step 15: Hot glue the final two wedges into cones.
Step 16: Hot glue the first cone onto the top of a skewer. Slide the other two cones onto the skewer as well – if they don’t quite fit over the skewer, use scissors to cut a tiny slit to widen the hole. If the cones fit snugly you won’t even need to glue them in place, but if they wiggle around hot glue them from the inside to keep them secure.