DIY Felt Christmas Tree for Toddlers
When our first born was almost two years old I needed something to distract her from our real tree, so I made a DIY felt Christmas tree for her.
This may sound silly, but since she wasn’t allowed to touch our big tree, or the presents underneath, I taught her to wave at the tree, and tell the ornaments, “hello.”
Low and behold, it worked like a charm.
But I still wanted something she could touch and play with that was more on her level.
That’s when I discovered the world of DIY felt Christmas trees, and couldn’t get to the craft store fast enough.
Make your own DIY Felt Christmas Tree!
I bought a yard of green felt at Hobby Lobby for $3.60 (it was $5.99, but then I used their 40% off coupon from their app), and a smattering of individual pieces of felt in various colors (for $.25 each), and went to town.
This DIY felt Christmas tree project is super cheap and totally worth the little amount of time that goes into making it.
What You Need:
Green felt (1 yard)
White chalk
Scissors
Double-sided tape
Extra felt (various colors)
How To Make It:
I got a yard of felt (in length) that was actually around 6′ feet wide, so I cut it in half. Then, I folded half of it “hot-dog style” and placed it on the floor.
Use the chalk to draw out your tree design! Start from the folded side. If you mess up with your tree design, no worries, this will be the back of the tree, so nobody will see it.
Start cutting!
Make sure you’re cutting from the open side of the felt and not the folded side!
Open it up and admire your new tree.
Hang it up. If it’s going on brick, it’ll stay up all on its own.
If it’s going on a wall, use double-sided tape (I put tape on all of the tree “limbs” and then several pieces in the middle of the tree).
Make ornaments for your DIY felt Christmas tree!
Right now you have just a regular ol’ tree.
In order to make it a Christmas tree it needs ornaments! To make my “ornaments” (im)perfectly round, I used lids from jars.
Decorate it!
The felt will stick to each other, so you don’t even need to bust out the hot glue gun unless you want to permanently decorate your ornaments.
BAM! You’re done! Step back and admire your tree…and then let your toddler go to town decorating it!
(Edit: When I made this tree originally, my daughter was on the verge of turning 2. She liked it and played with it, but now, a year later at almost 3, she LOVES it. This has already bought us several minutes of blissful quiet time! I know have three kids total and they’ve all played with this same DIY Felt Christmas tree!)
This is a win/win project since the price is right and it entertains my active toddler!
So run, don’t walk, to your local craft store and get yourself some felt!
Oh my goodness, this is so adorable! I love it!
I made one two years ago and I just hung it up. My 4 year old isn't quite as interested anymore but the 18 month old loves it. I glued presents to the bottom of my tree and added decorations with hot glue but it's totally not necessary. That's neat that it'll stick on brick by itself. I didn't think of double sided tape, I used Velcro command strips.
I totally forgot to mention that I have plans to make presents for under the tree! I have all the stuff for it, I'm just lazy and wanted to get the tree and movable parts up first. Glad your little one's playing with yours! I also added a "stump" to the bottom of the tree to, you know, make it look more "real," but I forgot to grab brown felt…so it's white. Good thing my daughter doesn't judge 🙂
I think my 5 year old would like this!
I've always wanted to make one of these. No clue where to locate felt here though :/
So cute! I wish we had wall space for this!