A Happy New Year Tree

Well, it was meant to be a Christmas tree. But time and other priorities got in the way of finishing this project.

I was visiting some of my favorite blogs a few months ago, and I found this very cool project at Polka Dot Pineapple. Lettie is a tremendously creative person and has the best ideas, most of them with fabric or paper. This was a ruffled fabric Christmas tree that I just fell in love with.

First, I had to create the templates. This was the worst part of the whole thing. Very tedious, but now I have them and can make many more trees!

 Fourteen different templates cut out of poster board!

 I bought this fabric several years ago with no idea what to do with it. Now I know. It has very cute, tiny trees all over it.

 Fourteen circles cut out of fabric to make the tree.

 Here's a closer view.

 The trunk of the tree was an empty thread spool covered in a scrap of fabric and glued into place. Then a regular drinking straw was inserted into the hole of the spool.

After cutting out all the fabric circles, I trimmed the outside edges with pinking shears and took a running stitch around the inside edge, pulling tightly as I went. Each of these forms one of the ruffles of the tree.

After stacking them in order (largest to smallest), I trimmed the straw to fit and topped with a jingle bell. With the tree fabric, a star would have been better, but I didn't have any. No matter...it still looked great!

 The view from above is very cute as well.

Check out Lettie's blog and you will find a great assortment of crafts to create! The link above goes to the tutorial for the tree, but clicking on the banner will take you to the most recent posts.

Enjoy! And Happy New Year!