Ruffle Trees

You're not going to believe what I am making these adorable ruffle Christmas trees with today. Foil and fabric. Yep, that's right. Two things you probably already have and you won't believe how cute those two things can end up looking. First let me explain the foil thing. Over Thanksgiving I was talking to my mother-in-law about making wreaths and she brought up the idea of making a wreath form out of foil.....and I was like, "What!?". My mind was blown. You mean I don't have to buy those expensive wreath forms all the time? You mean I can make them with FOIL!? It was a revelation. So then I thought, why not do the same thing to make those cone shapes (for making cutesy trees) you buy at the craft store. Basically just so that I wouldn't have to go buy any. So I did. And it worked beautifully. I made these freaking adorable ruffle trees out of them. And I'm about to show you how to do just that.

You will need:
Heavy Duty Foil
Fabric
Hot glue gun

1. Start by crumpling up the foil and shaping it into a cone/tree shape. There is no real perfect method, just keep adding foil and smooshing it until you get the shape and height you want.

 

2. Cut a square of plain muslin and glue it around the tree form with hot glue to cover it. Make sure no foil is showing. Trim any excess muslin.

3. Then make a super duper LONG ruffle (for the tallest tree my strip of fabric was like 150 inches long, pre-ruching) and starting from the base of the tree, start glueing it around the tree.  

4. Work your way all the way around the tree from bottom to top.

5. When you get to the top, fold over the fabric, glue down and cut off any excess. Note: If you run out of ruffle before you get to the top, don't worry, just make another ruffle and continue where you left off. You will hardly notice.

Done! Now if you want you can make more trees in varying sizes and fabrics. So cute!

I mean come on! Tell me those aren't the cutest things you've ever seen! So Pottery Barn-esque. And no one will ever know they were made out of foil. There are tons of different ways to make little trees like this. You can use overlapping felt circles, or acorn caps painted gold....the options are endless and now that you know how to make a foil tree, you can make whatever kind of tree strikes your fancy! Have fun!