How to make a felt tree skirt

It’s the middle of December and I am in full swing holiday madness mode. I’m baking, I’m shopping, I’m wrapping, I’m adorning. I might as well just dress up like an elf and be done with it. This being my first Christmas with a little one around, my usual love of the winter season has been magnified into a crazed and frenzied Christmas-tastic explosion. Family members are concerned.

Instead of just buying a tree skirt from the store like a normal person, clearly I felt the needs to spend hours making one. So I’m tipping my hat to the Christmas décor of yesteryear with a new felt tree-skirt! The slightly gaudy, always campy look of those old felt skirts just light my little holiday fire. I got my original inspiration from The Felt Mouse here.

Want to make your own felt tree skirt? The tutorial below includes all the instructions you need, plus PDF print outs of my custom ornament designs for your cutting pleasure.

Let’s get to it! First, gather your needed supplies:

1. A plain felt tree skirt. I chose to buy mine because I found that Target sells plain scalloped felt tree skirts for $4.99, which is even cheaper than buying the felt.
2. A good SHARP pair of small scissors. Fabric stores are best for these. $10 or less will do you just fine.
3. Felt. Everyone says buy the expensive kind, I say buy the stuff from Michaels. Unless you’re planning to start your own tree skirt making business, which seems ill-advised, you can get the 29 cent stuff and be happy as a clam with it.
4. Felt Glue. That’s right, it exists. For all you non-sewers out there (and for you sewers who don't exactly relish the process) this stuff will rock your world. You can get it at any craft store! DON’T try to use Elmer’s or hot glue. I speak from experience, it doesn’t work girls.
   
5. Pom-Poms! Big ones, small ones, fat ones tall ones! No vintage tree skirt is complete without them.
6. Glitter. If you want to go old school – get the fat chunky glitter found in the kids section. You know what I’m talkin about.
7. Needle, Thread, Pins. You only need this if you plan to sew on some trim. If not, you’ll be fine with the felt glue alone. If you do plan to use trim, check out the new gigantic ric-rac. It’s whimsical, it’s retro, it’s only $1.99 a yard. It’s giant ric-rac; and you know you want it.
8. Designcandie Printouts. Printable patterns for the ornaments and accents are below.
   
   

I used a red skirt and picked bright colors for the ornaments to get the look I was going for – but you can change the color scheme and make something completely different to suit your own decor. There is a beautiful example here by Shabby Boutique – using light pink and aqua. I also think you could do something marvelous using just white. The texture of the felt alone would make it interesting. This one gives me so many ideas...

If you want to add trim around the skirt, begin at the opening either below or above the Velcro. This is where you need to start so the skirt will still open once you’re done. For a standard sized skirt, you'll need about 4 yards of trim if you plan to put it around the bottom. You can pin the trim down evenly using the distance between the tip of your finger and the tip of your thumb as a measuring tool. Place your hand in the center of each scallop and place a a pin in the center of your trim right above where your index finger hits. Pin all the way around the skirt and then use a sewing machine to stitch it in place. If you have major patience you could also hand sew it. Or, if you’re a non-sewer, just use your felt glue. Take the pins out one at a time as you glue it down to keep the even spacing intact.

Next, it’s time for the ornaments!!! First, decide how many ornaments you want on your skirt. I used 6, which seemed to work well visually. Then decide on your colors; I used green and bright blue for the base of each ornament with white accents to match my white ric-rac.

Go ahead and print out the template packet. Start with the large ornament pages – print them out on regular copy paper and then cut them out. Standard felt sheets from the craft store come in 8.5" x 11" sheets - so that's how I sized the designs as well. You'll need one full peice of felt for each large ornament. I used a disappearing ink marker (found at any fabric store) to trace out the designs onto the felt, but you can also use a regular sharpie for the tracing. If you do, be sure to cut inside the line you traced or you’ll be able to see the marker on the edge of the felt.

Then, use your sharp small scissors to cut out the ornament shapes. Once you have your large shapes done, go back to the same print outs and cut out the smaller pieces on each ornament for a secondary burst of color. You can either hand sew or glue these pieces down using your felt glue.

Next, print out the accent pages and decide which ones you want to use on each ornament. Cut out the accents to be used, and trace and cut them out of felt as well.

At this point, I chose to glitter up the surface of each accent – so I did this before attaching them to the ornament. If you want to add glitter, just use your finger to spread the felt glue evenly and then shake on the glitter. Don’t you be shy, use plenty of glitter to get even coverage. Once those pieces have dried, you can attach them to your ornaments as well.

Then sew or glue your ornaments down onto the tree skirt, and set out to dry.

Finally, just sew or glue your pom-poms to the edges and you are DONE! I used small white pom poms around the entire scalloped edge, and larger silver pom poms in the center of every other scallop for added sparkle-factor.

DONE and DONE.