Ruffle Tree Forest

I've been loving all the cute little Christmas trees that are all over blogland this year, so I had to make some of my own. Most of the tutorials you find involve sewing (like at Tatertots & Jello and Shanty 2 Chic), but for whatever reason I've been feeling very anti sewing lately. Also, I don't have ruffler foot for my machine, so I would have to sew by hand....blah. I was however feeling very pro glue gun, so here is my hot glue ruffle tree forest!

I had a whole picture tutorial set up for you guys, but somehow my brand new camera (lost my other one at the zoo last month) and my pretty new laptop (other one took a dump a few months ago) have teamed up against me and started deleting random photos in the transfer process. So here are some pictures, and I'll just have to fill in the blanks with words. Shouldn't be too hard, the whole process is very simple.

First step is to gather your supplies. I used styrofoam cones, wooden finals, and mini wooden candlesticks for  the bases (all found at Hobby Lobby).  You will also need something to make the tree out of, I used leftover fabric, ribbon and some gold rope. My favorite is the ribbon, it was the easiest to do and I think turned out the prettiest.

For the fabric trees, I first cut some fabric strips (about 2 inches wide or so), ironed them in half, then added a  bit of fabric glue to hold it together. 

Actually, right after I took this picture I ran out of fabric glue (used it all for my lampshades), so i just used hot glue. 

To make the tree, all you do is start wrapping it around the cone, gluing as you go. About every inch or so, fold it back over its self ( to form the ruffle) and keep going, like so...

This takes a bit, fortunately Elijah was pretty content playing with the glue sticks and bases.

I wanted a different look for the other fabric trees, so I cut a strip using my pinking shears and glued it on just like that, no folding or ironing required.

When we were decorating our Christmas tree I found a random piece of gold rope in the ornament box, so naturally I decided to make a tree out of it...

Your probably wondering if my toddler was still happily playing with glue sticks. Well no, no he wasn't....

However, Levi (seven weeks) was behaving himself very well. He's my favorite, lol.

I wanted the bases to be different heights, so I made some cuts and glued the pieces to each other (using hot glue! If only hot glue would clean my house...)

Then I painted those suckas white, glued them and the finals to the trees and suddenly it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

(if your wondering about that epic baby picture, you can read about it here)

I love them! I want to make like twenty more for all the other tables and shelves that are feeling unchristmasy.    Perhaps that would be overkill, lol.


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