I cannot make these for the life of me to come out good. I need advice. If you have seen the cover of self working paper miracles that's what mine look like but worse. How do you make them to come out as a cylinder not a cone and how do you get them to reach high lengths? any info can help. How do you cut them to make the ladders. Please any information would help.

-thank you

As a child, we used to use a full newspaper,(local, about 12 sheets ) and start rolling it up, one sheet at a time into a small diameter (~2 inches) tube. Overlap each new sheet by about 3 inches on the edge of the old one, and keep rolling. Once the tube is all rolled up, you can use a small bit of tape to hold the edge together. You now either tear or cut the "leaves" from one end of the tube, about 1/3 of the total length of the tube- if the paper is 18 inches tall, you cut 6 inches down for the leaves.
There will be some taper as you pull up, and to avoid the lined up leaves look, just twist the inner edge as you pull it up, it makes the tree stay tight, spreads the leaves around the tube, and makes it nice and tall.
In fact we used it to make 8 foot corn stalks for a plane crash display a couple years ago for CAP!
The ladder if I recall is a tube folded over in a U shape, with the cut 1/2 way through the tube at each bend, and the upper lateral portion removed- if you lay it flat again it would sort of look like ====____==== with the = being a full part of the tube, and the _ being the part left after cutting. Re-fold into the U shape, and have someone hold the base, pull up from each side, NOT the middle!
We never did the ladder much, as Jack always had the beanstalk, not a ladder!
Good luck
Kay

I have used this a lot as well, it bugs me how much of a reaction this simple thing gets LOL
I actually use 3 pieces of full size paper(I wont explain you already know how to overlap them)
I cut down the lenght more then half way, I leave enough to have a sort of handle, with 3 sheets it makes a good 5 to 6 foot tree, I have found that with more then 3 pieces it is difficult to cut, which is fine if you are using it for a display but if making it during the show it looks awkard when you have trouble cutting it!
a few things you can try, make sure when you are overlapping the pieces they are stright and not getting rolled up crooked!
try rolling the tube up a little tighter, it is always going to form a sort of cylinder getting smaller at the top just like a real tree!
try cutting it to different lenghts and see if that helps and make sure you are pulling the center!
hope that helps
Greg

Thank you So you roll up one piece of paper then stagger it and roll up another piece over it. Where do you tape them ? sorry I just am not following very clearly. But again thank you because this was driveing me crazy.

-thank you

I paste several sheets on each side to produce a very long sheet of newspaper. I pre-cut the inner sheets and leave a sheet out to show and tear in front of the audience. In this way, you can make a super high paper tree about 20 feet high with 14 sheets or more of newspaper. Very spectacular. Just make sure you also have a high ceiling.

Eleazar Goodenough has a section on this in his book "Tear-Able Magic." Where he takes it one step further, is by suddenly pulling green plastic leaves and sponge ball coconuts from the top of the newspaper "tree" and launching into a full scale routine with it that takes it out of the category of a paper puzzle and into real paper magic.

Cascade88: if you have been taping the papers together, that could be your problem. They just overlap as you roll them together with no glue and no taping. They have to be free to slide about a little as the tree forms.

I only put a single bit of tape at the very end to hold it all together while I cut the top, Like Lou says, you are just trying to make a loooooong strip of newspaper to roll up. Newspaper is cheap, practice a few times to see how it works, and experiment! It can still go into the recycle when you are all done!!
I think Eleazer's book has illustrations in it to help- along with other good paper stuff to learn and do!
k

Ill pay money to learn this because the resources I have seen make the tree look like a bouquet not a bamboo pole with leaves.

Cascade88
Not having seen the same sources, I might not be describing what you need. Realize that since you get a hollow tube of paper while you are doing this, it surely cannot be that hard to have a gaff tube in place with any extra "fluff" or parts needed, and that might be part of the solution. Something to consider- sort of a variation on the rolled paper tube loads.
kay