Day 04: Felt Christmas Tree Ornament

I can't lie to you... My family is not suuuuper big on traditions. I guess we have some, but we tend to be relatively flexible when it comes to the holidays. One tradition we DO have, however: decorating the tree together with nothin' but handmade ornaments! I personally own very few store-bought ornaments, so making ornaments is something near and dear to my heart.

This project was a little more involved than the previous DIYs, but so worth it in my opinion. 

Stuff you'll need:

Green felt, polyester fiberfill, embroidery thread in your color of choice, needle, light bulb beads {from Michaels}, small wooden flower pot, gold glitter, glue {plain ol' Elmers}, 0.75" pom poms, tacky glue, sewing machine & thread

What you've gotta do:

1. Cover your wooden flower pot in glue {just slather it on} and sprinkle that baby with TONS o' glitter. I put the pot in a ramekin before dumping glitter on it, to avoid a glitter-disaster. Then just let it dry for a while.  
2. While that's drying, fold your felt over and cut out a triangle in your desired tree shape. Be sure to cut through both layers of felt so your triangles are identical. 
3. Using your sewing machine, sew up the sides of the tree, stitching the two triangles together. 
4. Lightly stuff the tree, pushing the stuffing as far to the top as you can. With the stuffing pushed to the top, sew the bottoms of the triangles together {when they're sewn together, re-smush the stuffing so that it's more spread out}.
5. Hand embroider stitched "garland" across the tree. Thread your needle and tie a knot in the end of the thread. Insert your needle between the two pieces of felt, at the bottom corner {this way, the knot will be hidden}. I stitched across using a backstitch, threading a bead onto my thread near the end of each row. Fasten off at the top, between the two layers of felt to hide the knot again. 
6. Thread your needle with more thread {I used red} and insert your needle between the two layer of felt at the top of the tree. You want to go through the tree to the opposite side between the felt layers. Center your thread through the tree and tie the ends together at the top. This will serve as your ornament hanger!
7. When your flower pot is dry, put a small amount of glue in the bottom and press a pom-pom into it. Add more glue and press in a second pom-pom. 
8. Put a straight line of tacky glue across the top of your pot from edge-to-edge, over the pom-pom. 
9. Press the bottom of your tree into the tacky glue and allow it to dry. I propped mine up against something so that the tree was able to stand up while drying. I allowed my ornament to dry overnight before handling. 

Does your family have any tree-decorating taditions? Do you prefer store-bought or handmade ornaments?

I secretly love the bright, shiny store-bought ornaments, and may have to have more than one tree someday to mix it up a bit! :)

If you give this a try, I'd love to see how it turns out!

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