Project Pinterest: Felt Christmas Tree

I got this idea a few months ago after seeing this pin on Pinterest--a felt Christmas tree attached to a wall with removable ornaments that kids can decorate (and un-decorate) to their heart's content. It seemed like an easy project and one that might have a chance at keeping my child entertained for at least 10 minutes. I am happy to say that it was successful on both counts!

I bought a yard of green felt for the tree but did not end up needing that much--3/4 yard would have been plenty. I wanted a tree big enough for her to stand up and decorate but not so big that she couldn't reach the top. Obviously the size of your tree depends on the age/height of your child, and in my case it did not need to be very tall :) The finished height of my tree is 21" and is just about 24" at its widest part. I drew an outline of the tree on poster board first, cut it out, then used that as a template.

I attached some white felt to the back so that there'd be more felt at the bottom to attach the presents to. I went with white so it would look like snow (yeah, I know, an indoor tree with snow on the bottom? The whole thing requires imagination!). I used Heat & Bond and an iron to fuse the different colored felt pieces together.

Instead of using nails or tacks to hang the tree on the wall, I went with these adhesive picture hanging strips. So far so good--the tree has stayed securely attached to the wall despite some tugging by little hands.

I used lots of different colored felt pieces to make ornaments:

I kept this project hidden while I was working on it and brought it all out and hung the tree in the morning before she woke up so she'd be surprised when she came downstairs and saw it. I think she likes it.

As you can see from the picture progression, her favorite part was un-decorating.

Happy Monday (ugh, is it really Monday already?) to you all!

~Stacy