Welcome to Christmas in July! As we gear up for the holiday season, I have a fun DIY project that will surely get you in the holiday spirit! What’s even better? You can complete this fun craft in under an hour!
While Anthropologie or Pottery Barn may take the cake when it comes to store bought Christmas decor, homemade crafts tend to make for the best decor. We have some fun and exciting seasonal collections that are sure to bring the best homemade touch to your home this holiday season. As the sole creator behind your project, you are allowed to start with a blank canvas and completely customize your project to best suit your holiday aesthetic.
For this week’s project, I will be showing you how to make an easy and simple DIY project that is sure to fit in with all of your Christmas decorations. Along the way, we will also take a look at some coordinating collections from none other than our Anita Goodesign library, that are sure to beat out your store bought items!
As always, you can following along with our step-by-step pictures, or jump to our project process below for a quicker tutorial without the photos!
Let’s get started!
GATHER YOUR MATERIALS!
It’s important to grab all of the necessary materials to make this project! Here are a few must haves to get you started.
- Felt – Color of your choice
- Hot Glue Gun
- Sticks and Platform – You can use what you have around your yard, or head on over to your local craft shop for pre-cut tree circles!
- Tree Clip Art Print Out – you can find these on google
- Scissors, Pins, and Marking Utensil
STEP 1
Once you have found the perfect stick and felt fabric, it’s time to print out your clip art template. For this project, I went to google and searched Christmas Tree Outline. I found one that would best suit the aesthetic I was going for. There are a ton of designs to choose from!
STEP 2
Once you have a pattern picked out, it’s time to scale your project. I set my template to fill the page proportionally when printing (scale to fit). If you want to scale your tree up or down, the choice is yours! I played around with a few different sizes when designing my tree for this project. It may take a few test runs for you to decide what size is perfect for you!
STEP 3
You will notice here, there is no tree trunk for our patten. When trimming out your design, you will trim off your tree trunk as we will not need this portion of our pattern. You will also want to decide if you want your tree trunk (stick) to be long or short. I chose to size my stick/tree trunk based off of the size of my tree pattern.
STEP 4
Lay your pattern down on your felt and pin in place. If it is easier to trim, you can trace your pattern with a marker, remove the pattern and trim. You will want to make sure you are trimming carefully as all edges will be left raw for the finished project. I chose to start with four trees. This helped me create a base. I would then trim out more later!
STEP 5
To make the attachment process much easier, I folded my felt tree in half and pinned it together. This will help you during the gluing process.
STEP 6
Align your folded felt tree to your stick. To ensure the stick is fully covered at the top, place your felt tree an inch or so above the top of the stick. Using your hot glue gun, line one side of the stick with glue. Place your folded felt tree against the glue and hold it in place for 30 seconds.
STEP 7
Repeat this process until you have used all four felt trees. This will help us create a base for our next few layers!
STEP 8
To avoid showing any gaps in my tree, I glued all 4 sides of my tree pieces together along bottom and side edges.
STEP 9
To add more layers, repeat step 5 and align them along the center of your felt tree pieces you previously glued together.
STEP 10
Repeat this process on all four sides until you have the right amount of fluff for your tree. At times I would place a dot of hot glue in-between the layers to add a bit of shaping to my project.
STEP 11
Next, find your tree base. We purchased these round tree bases from a local craft store. If you would like your project to look a bit more seamless, you can drill a hole, just as we did here, to match the width of your branch. Add some hot glue to the hole you just created and attached your tree!
STEP 12
Your project is now complete! Have some fun with this project as you test out different template sizes, sticks and various felt color options! 
With all the knowledge on how to create the perfect, rustic felt Christmas tree, we can now discuss a few other fun projects involving collections we offer here at Anita Goodesign!
First and foremost, one of the top choices comes from our Sewin’ Singles category. We have recently released a few items from our Christmas drop! If you love these embroidery singles, you are sure to love the upcoming designs we have in-store for the rest of our Christmas in July segment! From snowglobes to Rudolph ice-skating, you will have the opportunity to choose select single designs, which make for the perfect addition to your holiday hand towels, kitchen curtains, and may be the perfect addition to your Christmas morning robe and slippers!
While you may love the single designs we offer, there are quite a few seasonal projects listed within our embroidery arsenal that will surely jumpstart your holiday spirit! One in particular is our Hodgepodge Christmas. This beautiful collection is a Special Edition that features an abundant amount of holiday projects including ornaments, stockings, and none other than a stuffed Christmas tree! Pair your poly-filled stuffed Christmas tree with our rustic felt friends we created above!
As always, our library features projects on all levels. So if you are looking for something that takes a little less time, but will still enhance your holiday decor, then try making one of our Yuletide Picture Pouches! As a child, I used to make framed ornaments out of popsicle sticks. You would be able to find a kindergarten photo somewhere on my Christmas tree! Overtime, projects would pile-up or break as we would take everything down and store it in a tote for the next season. With this collection, you won’t have to worry about your ornament breaking. You will now have a life-long ornament that’s perfect for interchanging photos as your child grows throughout the years! Choose from ten designs that include Frosty the snowman, cats, polar bears, and penguins!
I hope you all enjoyed this tutorial and insight on some of the best holiday collections we have here at Anita Goodesign! This is just a small snippet of what we have to offer, so make sure to check out the rest of our inventory!
As always, we love to see what YOU come up with! So don’t forget to tag us on social media for a chance to be featured on our Instagram and Facebook pages!
Stay tuned for next week where I will be discussing the 7 top trending quilting fabrics for 2022!
Happy Holidays!
Brooke