Posts tagged: felt

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So I know you’ve all seen the cute DIY felt Christmas trees alllll over Pinterest and Instagram this holiday.  I know I did.  And I drooled over the simplicity of the design, the fact that it was felt (meaning, it will last me more than just 1 year), and also a great way to use my extra craft supplies as decoration!  As you can see, my felt Christmas trees look a little different.  I used more vibrant colors because it matched my Christmas home decor, but then I added dainty lace, mini poms poms and gold beads to embellish the finished trees.  I’m really happy with the way they came out, so keep reading my step-by-step tutorial to see how you can create this for yourself!

More of a watcher than a reader?  Head over to the video tutorial here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-cQKs8Tays

First off, these are the supplies that you’ll need: 

• wooden dowels – I used 12″ ones from Amazon
• sewing pins (to keep your felt in place as you’re working with it)
• hot glue gun
• tree pattern(s) for tracing the felt – I found mine at One Little Project’s site.
• felt, in the color(s) of your choice. You’ll need about 3 standard rectangular felt pieces for each tree.  You might need more or less depending on how big or small you make your felt shape.
• wood slices (also called wooden cross sections)
• drill (for making a hole in your wood slice for the dowel)

Optional Tree Accents:

• mini pom poms
• dainty lace/trim
• gold beads/jingle bells

The first thing you’ll need to do is to cut out 8 felt trees.  Like I said, I got the pattern for my trees on One Little Project’s site.  She has 7 different trees that you can choose from, and the best part is, it’s free!  I took the PDF and enlarged the tree shape I wanted to use in Word.  Then, I printed it and cut it out.  The good thing about this tree pattern is that it has thick lines which makes it easier to cut and trace, especially since you’ll be cutting around it 8 times!

I suggest cutting out your felt trees with a comfy blanket and your fabric scissors while watching an old Christmas fav — it would be A Christmas Story for me.

“You’ll shoot your eye out, kid!”

To make the process easier, I recommend pinning your paper tree pattern to your felt.  This will help keep your tree in place as you cut around it.  I’ve found that three pins usually works well.  (The Crafty Lefty Tip:  Instead of pinning the tree pattern to the felt, I have tried tracing around the

pattern using fabric pens and regular pens so I could just cut out the felt directly. But, I haven’t found any pen that works well on felt, without leaving stain marks.)

Once your tree pattern has been pinned, it’s time to cut out your first felt piece….and repeat 8 times!  Didn’t I tell you to get a comfy blanket??

Next, start getting your supplies together.  Fire up that hot glue gun, get 1 wooden dowel, keep those pins nearby, and have all 8 felt pieces ready.  Fold your first felt tree in half, and use your pins to keep it folded as shown in the picture below.

Run a line of hot glue down the spine of the folded tree, keeping in mind not to add glue to the top 1/2 inch of  your felt tree.  Carefully press the folded spine of the tree to your wooden dowel and apply pressure for a few seconds.  Remove your pins and add them to your next tree.

This is my strategy for adding the felt trees to your dowel.  I like to glue the trees in quadrants.  So when you glue the second tree, it will be directly opposite the first tree, as shown in the picture.

The third tree will be perpendicular to the trees you have already glued, and then the fourth tree will be directly opposite the third tree.

At this point, you’ve glued 4 trees, and you have 4 trees left.  So you’ll need to glue each additional tree in between each tree that is already on the dowel.  Flatten your trees so that the wooden dowel shows through, and start by gluing your fifth tree, as shown in the picture.

It’s easy to get confused as you’re gluing each new tree, so just remember, after you’ve glued your fifth tree, start in one direction, and skip one tree, and then glue your sixth tree there.  After that, skip one tree, and glue your next tree in that spot, and so on until you are done.

Next you’ll need to connect the top points of all your trees that you didn’t glue.  Put some glue at the top of your wooden dowel and pinch all of your points together to form a peak, as shown in the picture below.

…and you’re done with the felt part of your felt tree!  All you have left is to drill your holes into your wood slices and place your dowel in the holes you just drilled.

I used a 3/16 drill bit for these dowels, but all dowels are not the same thickness.  So I would suggest starting with a drill bit that’s slightly smaller than your dowel thickness, and seeing if your dowel will fit.  If not, go up a size with your bit until you get to the right size hole.

My dowel fit perfectly in the hole I made, so I did not need to use any glue to secure it.  However, you can certainly use wood glue in case your hole is a bit loose.  I like the idea of varying the look of my felt trees, so for some trees I used one log slice, and for others, I used a few slices of varying sizes.

Afterwards, I accented my trees by hot gluing gold beads, dainty lace and mini pom poms to them.