A festive (and easy!) Christmas craft that won’t break the bank!

Fun AND simple, these charming little trees make a great homemade gift and add a punch of personality to your Christmas decor. They are a perfect way to let your creativity shine this holiday season!

You will need

• Styrofoam cone; available in various sizes and easily found at any crafting store. I used a 7″ cone for this project that I happened to find at Dollar Tree.
• 1/2yd (18″) of scrap fabric; you can use whatever color you like or have on-hand. I happened to have some scraps of green laying around. Get creative! If you’re going to purchase fabric, then go wild! Glitter, prints, and festive coloring will work. (This is the amount of fabric I used for the 7″ tree. Larger trees will use more fabric. Make sure to plan accordingly.)
• Good scissors or fabric shears
• Ruler
• Sharpie marker
• Orange stick; the kind for cleaning fingernails. You can also use the blunt end of a metal file or a chopstick. I found the orange stick worked the best; and bonus, they’re at Dollar Tree too.)
• Hot glue (low temp)
• Assorted mini ornaments, trims/garlands, and miniature tree-toppers

Step 1 — Prep Work

1. Lay out your fabric and use your ruler to help you cut it into 3″-4″ strips. Do this for the entire half yard.
2. Cut your strips into approximately 3″-4″ pieces, making little squares. The beautiful part here is that the squares don’t have to be perfectly even and the fabric can have some folds and wrinkles too. It will all come together in the end. Do this for ALL the strips.

   

3. Take your cone, approximately 1/2″ up from the BOTTOM of the cone, place a dot with your Sharpie marker. Use your Sharpie to make a “ring” of dots around the bottom, about 1/2″ apart.

   

Step 2 — Assembly

1. Center your first fabric square over one of your marked dots. Using the beveled round end of the orange stick, press the fabric into the cone, turning gently. You want to try to press the fabric in about 1/2″. It will look something like this:

   

   

   Feel free to adjust slightly with your fingers and orange stick until the shape is to your liking. Remember, the best part about this project is that it does not have to be perfect!

2. Repeat this step for each dot you marked on the bottom of the cone until you have your first full ring completed.

   

Step 3 — Repetition

1. Mark a second ring of dots (approximately 1/2″ apart) above your first row
2. Using your orange stick, repeat Step 2 until you’ve completed the second row
3. Continue this process up the tree

   

IMPORTANT! When you get to the top of the tree, be gentle! The foam is much thinner here and if you push too hard, it WILL break and all your work will be lost.

Now you have a finished tree! But oh no, it’s naked!

Now comes the fun part–decorating!

Step 4 — Decorating

Most crafting stores this time of year will carry miniature ornaments, but don’t think you’re limited to just those. Be creative! Buttons, beads, cording, and ribbons can all serve to make gorgeous trimmings for your tree. Just remember, it’s the imperfections that give this project all of its charm and personality.

Heat up your hot glue gun and get decorating!

That’s all there is to it! This technique of fabric tucking can also be used on round foam balls to create ornaments!

Hope you found this tutorial useful and that it inspired you to get creative with your Christmas decorating and gifting.

Happy Holidays, everyone!