Be forewarned: This holiday decoration project is a messy one! In other words, perfect if your kids love getting their hands dirty and helping deck the halls around the house.

For materials, you’ll need Styrofoam cones (available at craft stores) with the plastic wrap still on. You’ll also need red and green yarn. I had pastel shades of each in my craft bin, which would look lovely if you’re taking a pastel approach to decorating this year! Ideally, I would have had darker red and green, but we were eager to do the project so made do.

Cut the yarn into pieces about 20 feet long. Yes you read that right, 20 feet! Travis loved helping measure out the long lengths by standing at the opposite end of the apartment from me.

Next we needed glue. You can use watered down store-bought glue, but we made a neat homemade version simply by mixing 1/2 cup flour with water until the consistency of a thick paste.

I worried Travis might not get his hands in there, but to my surprise, he was eager to see how it felt. Goopy!

Soak your stands of yarn in the “glue,” one strand at a time. Once it’s coated, wrap around one of the Styrofoam cones, wrapping and wrapping until completely covered – the more the better!

The key is not to let the yarn get tangled, or you’ll wind up with a clump you can’t continue to wrap. After a few successful trees, we encountered a tangle. Whoops!

Luckily the cone was just covered enough.

Let dry overnight. Travis had to come over and touch our flour glue occasionally, to see how the drying process was coming along.

In the morning, snip the plastic wrap from the cone, and slide the yarn tree off – you’ll have to tug the cone out a bit forcefully. Remove the inner plastic, and the yarn tree now stands alone.

We thought it might be fun to decorate one with little gems and beads, although it was hard to get them to stick on, as the beads were heavy.

Pinecones made lovely tree toppers though!