Here is the second group of Christmas trees I made for our mantel this year.

I haven’t put up any of the trees yet – I love Christmas, and I’m definitely catching myself singing along to the carols in stores, but I’m trying to enforce a little discipline at home. Besides, we’ve had some warm spells this November, so I might as well finish soaking up fall before celebrating winter!

I was originally inspired to make a Christmas forest by the exquisite handmade Christmas trees by Shauna Mailloux, and for today’s trees, I found inspiration from the charming felt trees made by Rebecca at the Crafted Sparrow.

Just to remind you, here’s a picture of the first decorative Christmas trees I made. They were all quick projects created by winding yarn or trim around the cone.

For the felt trees, I also used homemade tree bases formed by rolling used cardboard boxes into cones of varying sizes.

As predicted, this second group of trees did take longer to make, but they were still very doable projects and absolutely worth the effort!

Felt triangle trees
These trees were the ones inspired by the felt trees made by Rebecca at the Crafted Sparrow.

I made the first tree using 3 full sheets of felt for a 14.5″ tall cone. I started by cutting two inch strips of felt and then cutting those into triangles (top left picture below). I saved a little felt to hide the cardboard under the first row and a small circle to finish off the top.

Because this tree sat flat on the ground, rather than on a trunk, I wrapped some strips of felt around the bottom 2 inches of the tree, so the cardboard wouldn’t show under the first row of triangles (top right picture below). I then glued triangles, overlapping slightly, in a row around the cone (bottom left picture below). Hot glue worked better than white glue, which just got absorbed into the felt. I worked the same way all the up the tree and capped off the top with a small circle of felt.

A pretty tree, and I love this dark blue-grey color of felt.

The second felt triangle tree sits up on a glass bottle for a trunk. I’m thinking of filling it with some silver and grey beads. This tree was made the same way, except the first row of triangles hangs off the bottom of the cone (left picture below), since there is a trunk. For some variety, I made a narrower shaped cone for the white tree, and I added also some small pearl beads I had in my craft stash (right picture below). The cone for this tree is 13″ tall and used just over two sheets of felt.

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Felt circle tree

My friend and partner in crafting (crime), Ari, spotted these sweet felt trees from Land of Nod (and let’s be honest, what isn’t sweet at Land of Nod?!). The circles were not so hard to cut out – I used a Sharpie to trace a spool on a sheet of felt (top left picture below) and then pinned it to a second one, to cut out two sheets at once (top right picture below). This little tree used just over two sheets of felt.

Because the tree sat up on a base, I glued the first row of circles hanging just off the bottom of the cone (bottom left picture below). The cone was wider than the others, to change things up, and I decided to put a base on it, which was a large tin can wrapped in brown felt (bottom left picture below).

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Another cutie to add to the forest!

Here are some more pictures of the new felt trees and some of their old friends:

 

 

 

 

I am hoping to get around some more trees this season, but we’ll see how things go, with some stockings and teacher gifts still on the to-do list. I’m enjoying getting warmed up for the season!

“Jewels”

I shared this project at:

Centsational Girl’s holiday Link Party