Fleece Trees for the Holidays

Fleece Holiday Trees

I saw this project in a magazine at the library last year in January after I had all of my Christmas Decorations packed away.  It was a November edition of the magazine (wish I could remember the specific magazine, but it referenced a web site called Home Talk  for an idea trying to recreate fleece and felt holiday trees from Pottery Barn.  I scanned the article and jotted down a few notes on the materials and how to make the trees and forgot about the project until a few weeks ago when I was cleaning out space on my iPad. When I was at Walmart I ran across buffalo plaid fleece and decided to see if I could make a few trees for gifts and decorations this year.  Here is my first attempt, and the lessons I learned along the way

Materials I Gathered Before Starting:

• Fabric from Walmart  (red & black buffalo plaid fleece, white & black buffalo plaid fleece, and black felt--1/2 yard each for under $5)
• Wooden sticks--gather sticks the will work or use dowels (I used sticks from one of my previous projects)
• Glue Gun & Glue Sticks--I used wood glue on my first tree (fleece) with success, but needed the glue gun & glue sticks on the felt tree.  I found the glue gun worked better because the glue dried quicker--the only problem was the annoying glue strings created by the glue gun--I hate those!
• Blocks of Wood/Wood Rounds--I used wood rounds from a cedar branch but in a pinch a block of wood would work just as well.
• Jute Cording--I used this for the bow at the top of the tree
• Drill & bit--I used the drill to place a hole in the wood block/wood round for the stick/trunk of the tree.

Getting Started:

Step #1:  Find a template/clip art of a Christmas tree that will work as a pattern.  Here is a link to a coloring sheet I used for my template.  I printed the coloring sheet on card stock so that it held up a little better when making multiple trees.

Pin template to fold

Step #2:  Cut the tree template in half lengthwise and place it on the fold of the material you are using first and pin it down with straight pins.

Step #3:  Cut the 1/2 tree on the fold using sharp scissors.

Step #4:  Repeat Step #3 until you have cut 8 trees for your project.

Step #5:  Glue the folded trees to your stick or dowel until it is full.  Your fingers get messy and full of glue in this process and it requires a bit of "fluffing" and shaping with your scissors to create a full tree.  I got better at this step after making a couple of trees.  I found the felt to be the hardest to shape and ended up tacking the felt ones together in groups of 3 with a needle and thread to make them easier to attacj to the stick.

Cut 8 trees and attach with glue

Drill a hole for the stick/dowel

Step #6:  Using a large bit (as large as the stick/dowel you are using) drill a hole in the wood block/round.

Step #7:  Put a bit of glue on the stick/dowel and place it in the hole you have drilled in the wood block/round.

Glue 8 trees to the stick/dowel

Step #8:  I used a bit of jute cording to tie a bow at the top of the trees.  You could also glue a button, jingle bell or star on the top of the tree to finish it off.

It took me about 45 minutes to make my first tree, but it went much faster on my second and third efforts when I completed the trees in 15-20 minutes.  Before too long I'll have a little forest of fleece trees ready for the holidays :)

Completed Trees