DIY Christmas Tree: Part One- Tree Skirt

So, first up on my DIY Christmas Tree is the tree skirt.  I looked around and I found some really cute ones, except they were like $50+.  I started looking for a coupon.  Then, on one of my fun trips to the local Michael's craft store, I found these Large Santa sacks.  I thought they were super cute and they were only 2.99!  I put it down and came back to it a few times, trying to figure out what I could do with them.

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Cute right? I loved how he is blushing a little and that his nose is PINK! (double points for me: Here's my deceiving way to get pink into the skirt without CK getting angry!!!!)

Then it hit me.  The santa hat is in the shape of a triangle, which when cut out and put together with others, would help create a circle, perfect for the thin top of a tree skirt! So, I bought 5 and got to work last night while CK went out to a birthday party. 

First, I cut the sack so that the back (which was all white) was seperated and put it aside.  Then I cut out the green parts of the design and set them aside as well.  Now with the 5 santas, I arranged them around a small tree skirt I bought at the dollar store for, well, a dollar.  I figure the short cheap skirt would be great for a pattern design for the skirt.

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Then I placed the green pieces around manoeuvrings them around the openings of the Santa shape to make sure there were no empty spots.  I have said before that l love different shades of the same color, so with these two toned green colored scraps, I knew I wanted to utilize them.  I hot glue gunned all the pieces together, making sure to overlap pieces so that there were no holes again and make it look seamless.  Note: You could probably straight pin all the felt pieces together and then sew them.  You have to be careful with felt because it can be tricky when sewing because it can pucker, and well hot glue-gunning it was more fun and faster for me.  (I'm all about making something fabulous, while also having time left over to actually enjoy it)

Lastly, I notice that the Santa beards (which we curly and created a great rim for the skirt) were slightly flimsy, so I used the extra white felt, from the original back of the bag, and used it as backing for the beards by gluing it to the back of them and then cutting off the extra.  This was a perfectionism extra touch, so if you don't have time you can skip it,  but I do feel like it is thicker and more secure now, especially since I have a new puppy who will want to investigate.  Here's the final product...

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Ta-da!!!  Oh, and it only cost me 14.99 after my Michael's coupon.  If my husband only knew how lucky he was. :) 

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Lastly, I used the red pulls from all the bags for a new doggie toy.  I made a thick braid with the 10 pieces and Casanova has a new chew toy!  Part of saving money, is finding creative ways to use up all the materials that you have just like you would if you were cooking.



Does your tree have a stylist skirt?