Hopefully my mom won’t read this post, because this is going to be her Christmas present. She collects ugly trees, and I usually buy her one, but this year I wanted to make it for her. After a few mistakes I found a method that I really like and I decided to share it here.

For this project you will need outer tree fabric, about the size of the front of a youth sized t-shirt, poly-fil or other stuffing, and a round pouch to hold little plastic beads.

The first step is to cut out your tree pieces. You will need three triangles of fabric. The measurement from the base to the top will be about 3 times larger than the measurement of the base length. The example pieces are 2.5 inches by 7.5 inches.

You will also need the tree base. I used the same fabric as the tree sides, but it might be nice to  use a contrasting fabric. The base piece should be a circle that measures large enough to cover the whole bottom. To get the proper measurement take a piece of yarn and cut it to the length of the three bottoms of the triangles together. Lay the yarn down on the fabric in a circle and trace it, then cut.

Take your tree pieces to the sewing machine and sew the triangles together, wrongs sides together, until you have all three pieces connected.

Next, attach the bottom of the tree to the top. Sew around the perimeter of the tree base, leaving about an inch and a half open in order to turn and stuff it.

Once you have the tree stuffed with poly-fil, put the plastic beads into the cotton pouch.

Now place the pouch inside the bottom of the tree to weight it down and give it more stability. Ladder stitch, or whip stitch the opening shut. And now you have your tree!

You can do as I did, and decorate the tree with buttons, as shown in the photo at the top of the post. I just glued them on, but sewing them would be better.

Happy Holidays!