Felt Christmas Tree Tutorial

Last year a friend of mine posted a picture of her children playing with a small felt Christmas tree. I fell in love with the idea, went to Walmart to buy some felt and it sat in my craft closet until now. Life became hectic with the new baby, doctors visits, my daughter's birthday and the holidays that I some how didn't have time to make this adorable felt Christmas tree. This year shortly after we decorated our house, I pulled it out and got to crafting while the kids were napping.

This felt Christmas tree is so cute, cheap and fairly easy to make, just time consuming. Plus it helps keep the kids from playing with the real Christmas tree and teaches them fine motor skills. There are several different ways you can make the felt Christmas tree. My mom said when we were little she taught us with all kinds of felt crafts similar to this one just smaller so if you don't like this specific design, I'm sure you can find another tutorial somewhere else since felt crafts have been around for a while.

DIY Felt Christmas Tree

Cost: Around $5
Difficulty: Medium

Supplies:

1 yard of green felt
Misc colored felt
Fabric Scissors
Fabric Glue OR Hot Glue
Packaging Tape
Chalk OR Marker
Optional: Ornament Pattern Printable

How To:

1. Fold your green felt in half long ways and draw your Christmas tree outline with chalk or a marker.

I used chalk because it rubs off where as a marker is usually permanent. You can make your tree as big or as small as you want and give it branches like I did or make it into a triangle.

I also some how ended up with two yards of green felt for $3.97. Not sure why I bought two yards but I only used a yard for this tree so now I have enough left over for another tree, two small trees or another craft in general!

2. Following your chalk outline, cut the tree out. Make sure you don't cut your fold line.

3. Optional - Using brown felt, cut out a tree trunk and glue it to the back of your tree. Let dry.

*See Step 8 for what the tree trunk looks like.

NOTE: If you are using Fabric glue, it is best to set it in a place where it won't be touched as fabric glue can take up to 24 hours to fully dry.

4. While the tree trunk dries, you can start making the Christmas ornaments and other decorations for your tree. Here is a FREE Ornament Pattern Printable that I made as a guide for some of my ornaments. You can print it out, cut the patterns out you want to use and trace the patterns onto the colored felt with chalk or a marker.

5. Cut out the traced shapes and any other shapes you may want. You can make your ornaments any shape you want and any color you want. Don't forget to cut out some designs for your ornaments!

Decorations such as the gifts and bells I hand cut without a pattern, along with some of the ornament decorations.

6. Using Fabric glue, decorate the ornaments how ever you'd like. Let Dry.

I made some specialty ornaments such as Santa, snowmen, candy canes and bells. I also made some with cute designs and left some plain.

7. Optional - If you haven't already, cut out some squares or rectangles and decorate them to look like gifts. Let Dry.

I made name tags out of white felt for the gifts and wrote our names on them with a sharpie once they dried. You don't have to make gifts but they are a cute added touch and it helps teach your toddlers where the gifts go.

8. Once everything has dried, you can hang your tree. I let my tree and ornaments dry over night just to be safe since I used fabric glue. If the glue is still wet, the felt comes apart easier. I hung my tree during the kids nap time so I didn't have to worry about it getting destroyed before it was hung.

Find a nice open space for your tree. There are several ways you can hang your tree but I used packaging tape. I rolled the tape long ways and stuck it to the back of my tree. If you made branches like I did, each brach will need some tape on them. Gently place the tree on the wall and smooth it out by rubbing your hand where the tape is, securing it to the wall. Add extra tape if needed to areas that aren't secure. The packaging tape has worked great and has held the tree up this whole time even with my toddlers pulling at it!

I DO NOT recommend using tacks to hang your tree because tacks are dangerous for toddlers. Your toddler may not know what it is and pull it off the wall and hurt themselves.

9. Now that the tree is hung, here comes the fun part. Let your toddlers decorate the tree over and over again.

The ornament felt clings to the tree felt so the ornaments are easy to hang and easy to remove. I added some yarn to the box of ornaments to act as garland. The yarn also clings to the felt but is more of a challenge to hang than the ornaments.

Make sure to monitor your infant and toddlers play so that they don't try to peal the decorations off the ornaments and put them in their mouth. If an ornament comes apart you can easily glue it back together again.

Learning Skills:

Fine Motor Skills: This activity helps with fine motor skills by placing the ornaments on the tree and taking them off the tree.
Patterns: Have your toddlers make a pattern with the ornaments. Blank - Decorated or Round - Pointy.
Matching: Have your toddlers match all the shapes together. My son likes to match all the candy canes together.
Opposites: Teach your toddlers that the star goes on the "top" of the tree and the gifts go on the "bottom" of the tree.

The Felt Christmas tree is a great toy, activity and decoration for young children. It is fairly easy to make just very time consuming because you have to cut out all the pieces and wait for them to dry. It is also very inexpensive which is always a bonus! There are several different ways you can teach your children as listed above and it helps keep your children from touching the real tree because they now have their own personal tree.

Make your felt Christmas tree your own. You can make the tree and ornaments any size, shape or color you want to better suit your home and Christmas decorations. You can add as many or as few ornaments and presents to the tree and store it in any plastic container when you are done. You can even make more felt decorations or crafts for your little ones to go along with the tree such as Frosty, Olaf, a general snowman, Santa, Elf on the Shelf, etc... and have your little ones put their faces and accessories on them. I personally have only made the felt Christmas tree but if I make any other character I will be sure to share! The felt Christmas tree is a great activity to do with your toddlers. It would also make a cute Christmas gift for the little one in your life.

Keep scrolling for pictures of our adorable felt Christmas tree and feel free to drop a comment below!