You guys are going to love this Felt Christmas Tree Project. I’ve been so excited to publish this post. 🙂

I love Christmas.

I mean…. I really, really love Christmas. I love the random acts of kindness, I love the parties, the chaos, the snow, and the overall Christmas magic. All year, we look forward to Christmas and fill our tree with handmade ornaments, make gifts for siblings, and go on the daily early morning search for our Elf on the Shelf, Buddy.

Decorating our tree is a family event that often takes days to complete. Each kid spends days and days creating the perfect, handcrafted ornaments that we keep for years and years. I make sure to give them paints and glitter that will compliment our seasonal decor, but overall, it’s their creative drive that brings each piece to completion.

So last year when Zoe turned one, we wanted to her to be involved in the family festivities and give her the opportunity to contribute to our tree decorations, but she was just barely to little to “get it” and often accidentally destroyed some of the more fragile ornaments her siblings had made. So…… we decided to make Zoe her own Toddler Tree for Christmas that she could decorate and redecorate over and over again.

The concept is simple. I wanted to create a simple, modern design that allowed her to make a mess, decorate it however she pleased, tear it down, and do it again. We actually made two trees (one for upstairs and one for downstairs) so she always had a tree nearby.

The “big kids” helped a lot with this and made most of the ornaments themselves. This project is easy, quick, and doesn’t take a room full of craft supplies to complete. Just get yourself a little bit of felt and a hot glue gun and your ready to go!

Supplies:

•  2 Yards of Green Felt (1 yard for each tree)
• 1/4-1/2 yard of Colorful Craft Felt for ornaments
• Hot Glue Gun
• Fabric Scissors
• Christmas Cookie Cutters
• Thumb Tacks  (You’ll need a lot to secure it to the wall. My toddler tends to yank things off the wall if she can.)

How To Make A DIY Felt Christmas Tree

Step 1:

First, I cut out the basic tree shape, which is basically just a large triangle. Fold your felt in half to keep your triangle symmetrical but feel free to make it whatever triangular angle you want. It doesn’t have to be exact and you can take some creative liberties to make it fit the space on your wall that you need.

Step 2:

Get your cookie cutters out and start tracing the basic shapes onto your extra felt pieces. I used basic stars and circles because I didn’t want Zoe to be able to easily rip the fabric apart. It also gave us more room to decorate each one. Since felt easily sticks to felt, you don;t have to worry about applying velcro, tapes, or any other adhesives to the ornaments to help them stick. Sometimes simplest is best.

Step 3:

This is where the kids got to get creative. They cut stripes of contrasting felt in various widths, curves, and shapes and got to start decorating. We hot glued the pieces together and within minutes, Zoe had her very own toddler tree that took almost no space in the house, provided hours of fun throughout the month, and was relatively easy to keep clean with a damp cloth.

This is the second year we’ve used our toddler tree and Zoe loves it even more this year than the last. I woke up early yesterday morning and found her quietly playing with her “Christmas’s Tree” in the front room. While she’s big enough to help decorate our real tree this year, I think she loves the independence and bright colors of her very own Zoe-size tree. Another plus- I’m not finding nearly as many “real” ornaments taken off the tree and left on the ground as last year.