Last year, I found a large cardboard tube in our recycling materials that I thought would make a great treehouse for the kids to play with. I cut a door in it and placed it in a small world scene. My daughter became so enamoured with the idea of it that she and my husband built some cardboard stairs inside leading to an upstairs bedroom with a shelf. I saved the cardboard tube and this year I wanted to give it some extra love to make it look more like a treehouse.
I hot glued two toilet paper rolls onto the sides of the tube for “branches” and then paper mâchéd the tree with scrap paper packaging. I used a 2:1 water and Elmer’s glue mixture to adhere the paper strips around the tube. I left lots of bunches in the paper mâché to give the effect of tree bark.
Then I painted the tree – starting with black in the crevices and working to a lighter colour brown on the tops of the ridges. A little green sponge painting around the base and where the branches meet the tree trunk gave the feel of some moss. Next year I may put a little actual moss on it. I am no artist, but it looked enough like a tree for my kids.
Once the tree was dry, we put it into our Peter Rabbit Sensory Play Tray. My daughter wanted to move some furniture in, so we put a lamp, small fireplace and couch downstairs and added a tv, pillow and blanket upstairs. Now it’s all ready for our wooden bunny friends.
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