A couple of years ago, I picked up a couple of styrofoam cones--two 6" and one 9"--with the vague idea of making them into little Christmas trees to decorate with at Christmas time. But, as I said, my ideas at the time were vague and the cones got packed away with other crafting materials waiting for completion. This year, I finally figured out what I wanted to do and got busy!
The best part is I had already decided my next sewing blog would cover how to make a ruffle for anything--skirts, trim, whatever--and that is exactly the sewing skill needed to make these adorable little trees! I love it when a plan comes together! 😉
To make these cute little trees, you need the following materials:
3 styrofoam cones of assorted sizes (I used 6" and 9" ones from the Walmart floral department)
2-3 coordinating fabrics or ribbon for each tree
Sewing measuring tape
Sewing machine, scissors and thread
Straight pins
Gold or yellow cardstock
Toothpicks
Glue
To start with, I cut each of my eight chosen fabrics into 1-1/2" wide strips. I did this by cutting the first strip (in this case gray) and then measuring everything else off with it.
I can't tell you how long to make the strips because it varied with the different fabrics I used--some were leftover yardage from other projects and some were fat quarters I hadn't yet cut into--but the average length of my strips was roughly 24" long, and I cut 3-4 strips from each fabric, again depending on how long the individual fabric was. Here are my color choices.
I started with the gray fabric and ran each strip through the sewing machine twice, first to finish one side with a zigzag stitch to keep it from unraveling and second with a loooong stitch on the opposite side to start making my ruffles (more on that in a second). This is what the strips looked like when I was done.
To make a ruffle is really a very simple process: (1) Set your sewing machine's pattern to a straight line (on my machine that's #1) and your thread length to 4 or longer; (2) sew a straight line down the length of the fabric you're ruffling and cut your thread from the machine leaving a long string on either end; (3) pull one side of the string out, forcing the fabric to gather in a ruffle.
It's important not to pull the string out of the fabric completely--that's why you leave a long piece on either end of the cloth--and I've also found it works best if you only pull one string, not both on one side. What I mean is a sewing machine makes a tight seam by crisscrossing two threads, one on top and one on bottom, back and forth together, so every seam has two threads hanging from the end. Don't pull on both of them, just the top or just the bottom. (And no, it doesn't matter which one you pull 😊.) When you're satisfied with your ruffle, you will now be ready to pin it to the styrofoam cone.
To do this I used straight pins I didn't really like (since I wasn't planning on taking the trees apart anytime soon) and simply wrapped each ruffle around, overlapping the ends and pinning it in place. I cut off any excess to be used later up on the tree and continued with my pattern until the tree was done. I then repeated the process with the two remaining cones. Honestly, the pinning part was the fastest and the most fun part of the whole process!
But my trees still needed something, a tree topper of some kind, so I rummaged through my supplies and came up with these cute little stars.
There is no right or wrong to this--I used a scrapbooking stencil I had and then enlarged it, but you could draw it by hand if you feel confident enough or download one from the internet to print and cut out--doesn't matter. What does matter is they should be done on cardstock for its stiffness, and you'll need two for each tree. A little scrapbooking glue and toothpicks to put it all together, and voila! All done!
My girls just died with delight over these, and even Tater smiled and said, "How cute!" when he first saw them (I have a sweet boy 😍)! They are just that cute! For me, it is extremely satisfying when something I create turns out just as good as I envisioned it. Now to find the perfect spot to display them......😏
If you choose to use ribbon to make these little trees, the process is much simpler obviously--you can simply gather and pin the ribbon in place. But I don't have any Christmas ribbon, while I do have a lot of Christmas fabric lying around (I'm stockpiling for a Christmas quilt one day 😉), so I chose to go this route. Whatever you decide to do, I'm sure your trees will look fabulous, too! Leave me a picture in the comments so I can see!
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