I threw out the old fake tree right after Christmas last year. We bought it back in 1998 for our first Christmas for $19.99 from Target.
BAGM had a bit of sticker shock at the price of the new decent fake trees. The other day she asked if she could “throw out an idea.” She wanted to make a tree using a bunch of pieces of construction paper or poster board and tape it to the wall and then decorate it with cut out stars, bells, etc.
I pondered it a second and then said we should make the tree out of felt and then we could make a bunch of felt decorations and stick them to the tree. We’re pretty dangerous when we work together.
We were able to buy a 6 feet wide by 6 feet long piece of green felt from Jo-Ann Fabrics (they sell it by the roll like normal fabric). A bunch of small pieces of various color felt brought the bill up around $20.
BAGM made me draw the tree because of my mad art skillz. We used cookie cutters and our own creativity to design the ornaments and the kids eagerly placed them all over the tree.
Here is our finished product. With the star it is approximately 7 feet tall.
My favorite part is that we can easily redecorate the tree any time we want. Most real (and fake) trees are fun to set up but then you spend the rest of the time chasing the kids (and pets) away from the tree. This tree practically begs to be poked and rearranged. We’re planning on doing this for the next few years until Giggles is old enough to be safe around a tree.
Who knows. By then it might be a neat family tradition.
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I LOVE that idea. I have been stressing about what to do for a tree, because the boy is about to turn 1 and is in to everything. My dread has now turned to excitement, as I plan to copy your idea. Hope you don’t mind!
Wow, cool idea! I’ll have to keep that concept in mind when my kids get a little bigger…
I love that idea too. Certainly saved on the storage problem too.
Cheers
Love this idea, will have to think about it for next year. This year we’ll be in hotels so a small miniature is what we’ll have.
This is SO cool! I will be stealing the idea for my classroom! Thanks!
That is a nice idea. I still think there’s a lot to be said for the traditional Christmas trees though. Most of my happy childhood memories of Christmas revolve around the tree.
Like homemom3 I have a miniature this year. It’s an 18 inch tall bonsai christmas tree. I’m planning to keep it outdoors once the holiday period is over.
Very cool idea! I love it! That would be a great answer to the problem I have – Dog in Tree
Aunt Shel, give me a call if you don’t know which Jo-Ann to go to for the full 6 foot wide rolls of felt. It wouldn’t be worth it without that piece to start with.
Sean, I agree that a real 3D tree is nice. I have tons of fond memories around the tree myself. Fortunately we are probably going to be able to let the kids decorate both grandparents trees.
Gayla, not only does it solve the dog in the tree problem, if you can draw a dog on a piece of felt, you can actually put a dog in the tree…for old times sake.
For the record, the kids and BAGM made some more ornaments yesterday. We had to put a little container next to the tree to hold the ones that don’t fit. They also played with the tree for long periods of the day yesterday.
Love your crazy ingenuity! My college roommate and I once did something similar. We made an outline of a Christmas tree on our apartment wall with lights and it was so cute!
what a great idea for kids with sensory issues…no twinkling lights.
I absolutely LOVE this idea, and I’m stealing it. I have a very busy baby boy who is 11 months old. We were thinking of skipping the tree entirely, but my 11 yo daughter would be broken hearted. Now thanks to you, problem solved!!! Thanks so much!!!
What are you using to hold the tree to the wall, and the ornaments to the tree? We want to go to Jo-Ann and I’d like to get everything all at once. My husband is actually excited about it, and so is my 11 yo. Thanks!!
pickel, I never even thought of it being an alternative for kids with sensory issues. Nice job. In addition to no lights, there are no poky branches either.
Angela,
We bought some little plastic rings (about a 1/2 diameter – we found them in the sewing section). We hand sewed one up near the top of the tree and one near the tip of each branch by just looping the thread around the bottom of the ring several times. Then we got some of that putty stuff that you can use to stick stuff to the wall. We kind of wrapped some of that around each ring and then stuck it to the wall.
Don’t forget that only the tree needs to be cut from the big roll. For the ornaments, we used the little felt rectangles I was used to from art projects as a kid.
BAGM just said there’s a good chance that the putty stuff would hold it up by sticking it directly to the felt but I would at least have the rings ready in case that doesn’t work.
A couple little tips. When you get the giant sheet of felt, fold it down the from top to bottom and then draw one side of the tree and when you cut it out and unfold it you will have an old tree that is pretty much even on each side. Also, make sure you leave room for the star and the trunk. Our green part of the tree is about 6 feet tall and the stump is about 12 inches. The star is about 12 inches but only 6 inches are above the top of the tree, so over all the tree is about 7 1/2 feet.
Nothing is holding the ornaments onto the tree (including the star at the top). Since they are felt, too, the felt ornaments just stick to the felt tree and are easy to pull off and move around whenever you or the kids feel like redecorating. Our kids are constantly (like over an hour a day) pulling down ornaments and moving them around.
If some of that doesn’t make sense, let me know and I can try to take some pictures of the part of the tree that you are having trouble with.
If you (or anybody else) do make a tree like this, could you send me a picture or two that I could post on the blog (or let me know where you post the pictures on your own)? I’d love to see what kind of ornaments other people make.
OMGosh! Thanks for getting back to me so quickly! Your directions are actually pretty clear. I’m hoping to get to the store tomorrow. Of course I’ll send pics! I can’t promise that they won’t have kids/pets in them as well though, and I don’t know if my art skillz are nearly as mad as yours. I’ll make do though. Thanks again!
Awesome. Looking forward to seeing the tree. Kids/pets/neighbors are perfectly welcome and encouraged in the photo. One thing we did with the tree is practice on a small piece of paper to figure out what the basic shape should look like before cutting the big giant sheet of felt. My first one on the paper was too skinny. That would have been a bummer if I had used the big sheet of felt and ended up with a super skinny tree.
1998! That tree was still young!. A couple years ago we finally threw away the tree I had while growing up. It’s hard to count rings on a fake tree, but my best guess it that it was nearly 25 years old.
I like the felt tree though. May have to do something like that in the kids room next year, where floor space is at a premium.
A 7 foot tall felt tree? lol I’ve never heard of such. lol When I was teaching, we made a big huge tree out of bulletin board paper,attached it to the bulletin board and let the kids decorate it. Then we put their gifts under it. hahaha
We bought an expensive artificial tree at Sam’s a few years ago. I told my husband we had to use it for at least 5-6 years so that we could get our money out of it. I’m sure we’ll use it for much longer than that.
“Girls like guys with skills.” –Napoleon Dynamite