Christmas Craft #5: Birch Tree Food Banners

As a last minute craft, I whipped together a quick touch to add to the table at Saturday's holiday party--a set of birch tree food banners. I felt really drawn to traditional woodland-inspired themes this season, and these tiny little trees make me long even more for a white Christmas.

Here are the supplies I used for these woodland-inspired banners:

 (birch paper straws, white cardstock, an X-acto knife, glue gun and glue sticks)

And now, here's how I turned paper straws into a woodsy banners for our holiday spread!

Step #1:

I started by determining how many banners I needed (1 per food item I would serve at Saturday's holiday party), and then cut each straw in half--these would become the "tree trunks". Next, I took a more straws and cut them in half vertically. 

 Step #2:

I took the straws with the long vertical cuts and cut each several times into small pieces in a variety of sizes. These pieces would become "branches" on the birch trees. I took each small piece, rolled them tightly and cut each end of the "branch" at an angle so that the branches are tapered at each end. I applied hot glue to one tapered end of the branch and attached it to the birch "tree trunks" that I made in Step #1.

 Step #3:

With the birches shaping up, I turned my attention to the banner portion of the display. I found a vintage clip art banner (free, of course) from this site and duplicated the image several times in Powerpoint. I printed a sheet on the white cardstock, cut them out and used my glue gun to attach a banner to the tops of two of my birch trees.

Step #4:

When determining the menu selection for our party, I knew I couldn't just stick these banners directly into some of the food. I mean, who wants a straw sticking out of their mac & cheese canapes? Not I. So I took more of my white cardstock, cut it into a rectangle, and glued it to the bottom of my "trees" as a sturdy base. I went a step further to apply some of my Martha Stewart glitter to the bases to mimic sparkly snow.

That's all it took! It may seem like a lot of cutting, but the process went very quickly. 

Now I have another special touch for our holiday party!

(all via Meet Me in Philadelphia)

Straws-turned-birch tree banners...how fun, am  I right?