Vintage-Style Tree Skirt
Recently we picked up a vintage 6ft aluminum Christmas tree at one of our local antique stores. It needed a vintage-style tree skirt to go along with it so I decided to make one. I went with non-traditional Christmas colors that looked good with the aluminum tree and my vintage ornaments. For the design on the skirt itself, I went with deer and trees, decorated with sequins and silver rick-rack.
Interested in making one yourself? Here is how I made mine:
Our living room with sparkly aluminum Christmas tree
For the skirt: Felt by-the-yard 45” wide by 1 1/2 yards (more or less depending on size)
For the skirt trim: pom-pom trim, lace, giant rick-rack, ruffles, fringe, etc.
For the appliqués: Felt sheets in a variety of colors
For the decorations: sequins, ribbon, rhinestones, glitter, rick-rack, etc.
Iron-on fusible web sheets or fabric glue
Thread and needle
STEP 1:
Cut a large circle from the felt. The circle should be just a little narrower than the bottom branches of your tree. The diameter of the bottom branches of my tree was about 40”, so I made the diameter of my felt circle about 36”. Cut a smaller circle from the center of the skirt, for the trunk of the tree. I cut a 4 inch circle, which was a bit too large for my aluminum tree but would work well for a real tree. Then make a cut from the outer edge of the skirt to the center hole.
STEP 2:
Trim the outer edge of the skirt. I sewed two rows of pink and green pom-pom trim for the edge of my skirt. If you don’t want to sew the trim on, you can always attach your trims with fabric glue. Some other no-sew options would be to cut slits around the skirt and weave a ribbon through the holes or use pinking shears to create a decorative edge.
STEP 3:
From the rest of the felt, cut out the appliqué shapes to decorate your skirt. You can download a pattern of the shapes I designed here.
Some of the felt used for my tree skirt
The paper templates for the cut-outs
STEP 5:
Attach the felt appliqué pieces to the skirt. I used an iron-on fusible web to attach the pieces, but you could also glue or sew them on.
The EZ-Steam fusible web I used to attach the pieces
Some of the appliqué pieces on my skirt
STEP 6:
If desired, you can further decorate the skirt with sequins, ribbon, glitter or rhinestones. I sewed the sequins and silver rick-rack decorations with metallic thread, but you could also glue the pieces on.
Multi-colored sequins
Silver rick-rack
A close-up of one of the deer appliqués with sequin spots
A close-up of one of the trees with rick-rack trim and sequins
This was a fun and easy project to do. It only took me a few hours to complete from start to finish.
The full tree skirt design
The tree skirt at the base of our aluminum tree