The Cascades Cardboard Tree Project

Earlier in the month I told you that I received a cardboard tree from Cascades.
I could not wait to decorate it! Paper, is clearly my thing, and a paper tree should have been in my home years ago!
I got the "Moderno" tree and it arrived flat in a cardboard box....reusable to store my tree after the holidays. This cardboard is unbelievably durable. It is 100% recycled and I might even refer to it as chipboard as it is so strong and dense.

I ordered the white one because I knew I would be stray painting parts of the tree and a white surface would require only one coat. One side of each panel was spray painted either red or gold and the other side I knew I would be covering with paper. The tree base and smaller pieces I spray painted on both sides.

It has been so cold that I could not find a day to do the spray painting. So I took a risk last week and did all the spray painting in the garage and hoped the paint would dry. Spray paint really needs a slightly warmer temperature than I have here in Canada at the moment. But I kept the spray cans in the house and only took them into the garage at the last minute.

Cascades used every inch of the cardboard. I thought I was just assembling a tree, but I found all these decorations and the star for the top ready to pop out too. I spray painted both sides of these pop outs.

Here is one of the panels. I attached beautiful gilded Italian paper to the reverse and then used the edge of the board to cut all the excess paper away.

Here is a close up of my beautiful tree with the red, gold and paper panels all visible.
I loved the circles and stars. Did you notice that they already cut a line so attaching them to the tree was easy. They slide on and off.

Here is the tree from the other direction. The Italian paper is just gorgeous. It made my tree so elegant that I can't decide where to put it....I've been moving it from room to room! It looks fantastic in our dining room against a red wall.
This was a great project. I only wish I had more time....I could have covered it in buttons, or rhinestones, or photos, or rubber stamped it, or hand painted, or lined it with fabric...........