Christmas Tree Tutorial!

I was loving all the cutesy trees on Pinterest so I decided to make some of my own! They are proudly displayed on my Christmas mantle!! But you will have to wait just a bit longer for that debut!;-) Anywhoo if you like what you see and want to make some of your very own here is a step-by-step tutorial of what I did. This project was fun, easy, and didn't take very long at all!



I picked up some Christmassy fabric that stood out to me at Hobby Lobby and also a couple of Styrofoam cones, and ruffly ribbon. The foam cones were a little pricier than I had hoped (I think $5.99 & $6.99), but I did use a coupon so that helped. My SIL told me they have them at Wal-mart so check that out for a cheaper price. I also read here how this lady did hers with poster board!! So cheap...I'm so going that route next time!

Step one...gather your Elmer's white craft glue, fabric, and cone(s). I simply laid my cone at one edge of the fabric leaving a little room at the top. I put glue along the edge as shown below:



I lifted the fabric towards the cone and pressed it down. Next, I put glue along the other side:



Then I rolled the cone onto the glue...



I repeated this rolling and gluing method until it was fully covered in fabric. But I actually rolled and glued some more so the fabric would be glued to fabric assuming it would stick better to itself than the Styrofoam.



After that, I cut roughly around the cone freeing it from the rest of the fabric (not worrying about being neat).



Next, I cut as close as I could to the tree, but I didn't worry too much about a straight, clean line. I knew I was going to put ribbon over it and could always have that part be the "back".



Then I laid my trees out to dry. I put them on top of a cardboard box because I could feel the glue coming through and didn't want to mess up a nice surface. I let them dry overnight, but I'm sure they would be fine after an hour or so. I didn't have a chance to work on them until the next day, but I also wanted to make sure the glue was good and dry because I was a little afraid it wouldn't stick very well. But it did and I was so glad!!! I didn't want to use hot glue as I was afraid it would melt the Styrofoam, so I was thrilled good ol' craft glue worked!



It was time to trim the tops and bottoms! I cut the bottoms along the edge until I had smooth, clean lines...I suppose wrapping the fabric around the bottom and hiding the Styrofoam may have looked a bit nicer, but I wanted them to sit flat so I went this route.



As for the tops...I snipped the fabric until there was about an 1" left and folded it down section by section until it was flat (about 3 sections) and hot glued them on top of each other. It's not the neatest, but it did the trick! If I had pins with red or green balls at the top I probably would have pinned it down. Just another idea:-)



Sorry I didn't get any "during" shots of doing the ribbon...it was probably the trickiest part. I did use hot glue for the ribbon since it was being glued to the fabric and not the Styrofoam. I started at the top and wrapped it down the cone. My method was doing a dot of hot glue and then wrapping the ribbon a little ways and another dot of hot glue and so on and so forth. It was challenging getting the ribbon evenly spaced and angled right. My green tree is a little better than than red tree. But I like how they are different and I like to think of my red one as "whimsical", lol!



So there you have it ladies and gents - custom made Christmas Trees!! Stayed tuned for the matching banner tutorial!!!

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree!