No Sew Christmas Tree Skirt!

So last weekend I decided to make one of my pinterest loves a reality.  Christmas pins are abundant and my boards are no exception.  My mind has been on Christmas for a good week or two now so I was itching to get crafty.

I saw this lovely, ruffly, tree skirt at My Crazy Life and thought it was so fun.  She has a link to another tutorial on her blog which shows how to cut the base into an even circle, if you're looking to try something similar out but don't have an old skirt to sacrifice.

Then I saw this gorgeous skirt over at The Johnston's and absolutely loved the combo of fabric and burlap!

Other than their uber cuteness, the reason I loved these skirts even more was because there was NO SEWING invovled!!  I don't know how to sew, nor do I own a sewing machine so this was key.

I decided to save some moola by reusing a tree skirt I already had, but didn't love (I had seen a few tutorials where you can make the base out of drop cloth but decided against it since I already had something at home)

She's a beaut!

Instead of ripping all the Santas, snowmen and snowflakes off (to ensure an even application) I decided to just flip it over and use the other side.  I gathered my materials (fabric, burlap, glue gun, glue - I used 21 mini sticks! - scissors and a measuring tape)



I'll give you the run down on how I did mine, but the two links above have awesome tutorials so I recommend checking them out too.

After flipping the old skirt over I grabbed my strips of fabric and burlap (I think in the end I ended up using 8-9 strips of both fabrics and each strip was 2-3 meters long.  I cut each strip to be 3 inches wide.  I did all the cutting the night before while watching one of my go-to feel-good movies - "My Date With Drew" if you're curious).

I would put about an inch or two strip of glue and attach the fabric.  To make the ruffles I pinched a piece of fabric, like so...

...then sneak a dab of glue behind the pinched part and stick it down...

The fabric layers were great, not a problem...the burlap layers however...more of a challenge.  The link I put at the beginning has a better way for working with the burlap, I didn't have any pins laying around though, so my fingers took the brunt of it.  I developed a system though.  Since the burlap has holes in it, the glue obviously seeps through onto your fingers when you push it down onto the felt skirt.  My genius (and highly unrecommended) system went a little like this.

1.  Sacrfice your fingers to burn on first contact
2.  Resist the urge to peel burning glue off fingertips
3.  Allow to dry. 
4.  You now have a layer of protection and will no longer get burned

Perhaps a picture will better explain how, after the initial burn, my fingers were completely protected.  Here's how they looked after an entire row of burlap...

Again, I would not recommend this, but it gave a nice layer of protection between the hot glue and my fingers!

But back to the skirt...

The old tree skirt had velcro on the back to attach the two ends together, so when I flipped it over to use the back side, the velcro was now visible.  Not to worry though, an easy fix - I cut the velcro off and just glued it on the side that would not be seen.  Easy Peasy!

Budget Breakdown

Tree Skirt Base - free

Mini Glue sticks - 18 for $4 at Michaels (used a 40% off coupon)

2 meters of fabric - marked down from $12/meter to $4/meter = $8 total

1 pack of burlap 1m x 3m - $5 at Home Depot

$17 total

While shopping around for tree skirts over the last 2 years I've learned that nice tree skirts are quite pricey so a $17 total made me happy!

Have a great weekend!  Any fun plans??

Has Christmas been on your mind yet?  Have you bought any new decor or done any crafts?  Are you pinning like crazy??