DIY Lighted Clay Mini Christmas Trees

Marybeth Santos
by Marybeth Santos
3 Materials
$5
20 Minutes
Easy

I love working with clay and I love Christmas, so I've married my two loves into these adorable little light up Christmas trees that will be perfect for your Christmas Village this year.

Aren't they adorable? And they are insanely easy to make. You won't need any fancy tools or to spend a ton of money.


Can you picture them in your fairy garden, too?

See nothing fancy! Some Air Dry Clay (You can use the Crayola kind, too!), some LED tea lights and I used a skewer to poke holes in my clay.

First you'll need to roll out your clay. Warm it up by rolling and kneading it in your hands first for a few minutes and then use a rolling pin or any cylinder shaped object to flatten the clay.


You want it about 1/8" thick.

Next you need to cut a cone shape into the clay. I used a kitchen knife and eyeballed the size. You need the bottom to be wide enough to fit around the tea light.

Next use your skewer to poke some holes in the clay. Hold on to the skewer, you're going to use it again in another step.

Wrap the clay around your tealight. This is the front.

And that's the back. Next you're going to be pinching it shut into a tree like form.

Pinch the back closed and you'll end up with a tree shape.

I trimmed off some of the excess from the bottom of the tree to keep it neat.


Once I had the tree formed, I used the skewer to back through the holes. You want them to be able to allow the light to come through.


Next you just need to let it dry overnight.


You could definitely paint these if you wanted!

How cute are they?


If you're wondering the clay doesn't stick to the tea lights, so when the battery dies on those, you can just stick the tree on top of a new one!

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Marybeth Santos
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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  3 questions
  • Tina Tina on Nov 21, 2019

    Super cute and clever!!

  • CJ CJ on Nov 25, 2019

    Very cute! Does the back side get pinched closed all the way, or are they open? Thanks!

  • CJ CJ on Nov 27, 2019

    Tried this with air-dry clay and could not get the clay to lift off the surface (my granite counter) without totally destroying the piece... even with a spatula. Any suggestions on what kind of surface to roll this out on?

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