Small Christmas Tree Tutorial

'Tis the season for Craft Shows, Fairs and Boutiques!  They are all great opportunities to buy handmade items from local artists and find that "one of a kind" gift for the hard-to-shop-for-person on your list!

 One of the downsides of participating in any type of "manning a booth" is the time between sales.  Sharing a booth can create blocks of time, if you are taking turns helping the customers.  This past weekend there were three of us "manning the booth" in Canton.

I'm never one to sit for too long, so I took along some "hand work" to fill in any time.  My sister also brought along handwork...she strung some new  necklaces...which she immediately sold when she completed them! 

I worked on some Christmas Tree ideas I had.  I saw a picture of a small Christmas tree created from fabric yo-yo's.  Cute, but I didn't want to have to cut and sew something to create my tree.

I had plenty of left over red and teal tulle and fabric from Emily's wedding, and I liked the fabric flowers I recently made, so I decided to combine the two.

You want to start with a 5-petal flower pattern.  I didn't have one, but it's easy enough to draw one.  I created 5 different sizes by the time I had perfected my trees. Each petal pattern is about 1/4" bigger between each petal size.  You may want to adjust yours, depending on how big you make your tree.

I cut at least 4 to 5 flowers from each color and each size.

I started with the tulle and cut 4 flower petals from each of the sizes (1-5).

Here I have the red and teal tulle mixed.

The fabric I used for the petals was the same fabric I used to create Emily's band on her wedding dress.

The wire can be purchased from a hardware store.  It's a pretty strong gage and if you buy a long length you can cut to your own tree size.  You might also want to "grind" down the end a bit so that it will be sharp enough to pierce the fabric.  Any "bauble" can be added to the end.  I used a pretty vintage earring on one of the completed trees.

Here are all the petals cut in the various sizes.

Begin by folding your petal in half...

then fold your flower into half again. (Quarters)

Once you have several petals that have been folded into quarters (half then half again makes the quarter)

You can push the fabric onto your wire. (This is why you would want the point of your wire sharpened.)

Once you begin to get several on the wire you can spread them out a little to see how many more you want to add.  The fullness is really up to you!

For the base of my trees I glued green rick-rack around a "used" wine cork.  The stand for my trees are old facet handles that I glued to the corks.

For these trees I stacked red flower, teal flower, red flower, teal flower.

In between the satin petal rows I added rows of tulle in red and teel.

I did cut flower petals from the tulle, but on a couple of them I cut circles and pushed the wire through the center of the tulle circles.  The tulle circles did not stand up and fill in as nicely as the folded tulle petals, but it did look more like a little petticoat.

I say...just experiment.

The trees were quick and easy (and were mindless work that could easily be put down.)

I'm thinking of making some pink and white ones this week.

OH...I'm gone to a wedding this weekend, so guess there won't be any trees this week!

I'll try to capture the beautiful bride and groom on their special day!

SOOO...till next week,

debi