Make This: Felt Christmas Tree

In our home, preschool is officially on break, Christmas is still a few days away, and I'm looking for any holiday-themed activity that does not involve the television or iPad. I mean, I love The Grinch with my whole heart, and I love that Camille has developed an affinity for his smelly green self too, but that doesn't mean that we are going to watch the TV all-day-erry-day like my toddler would if I let her!

So, I have a little DIY to pass along to you that is:
1) easy
2) cheap
3) FUN and CUTE and ADORABLE

OKAY OKAY OKAY before you think to yourself "that looks WAY too hard and involved and I'm clicking away from this silly blog" -- believe me when I tell you that you can do this.

Here's what you will need: felt (you can find this at a craft store or Walmart), scissors, hot glue gun

My felt tree sticks to our brick wall, so I didn't need to use any Command strips, but you could certainly go that route. Oh, and wondering how the ornaments stay on the tree? Felt sticks to felt, so you just put them right on and they are repositionable!

Let's break this easy DIY down:

1) For the tree part, I bought one yard of green felt and I was able to cut out two trees from it (I'm giving one as a gift). The yard of fabric was $5.99 I believe at Hobby Lobby, but I used a coupon on it and got it for around $3.50. So, each tree uses about $1.75 worth of dark green felt. You can also buy this at Walmart ... if you can locate someone to cut the fabric for you, ha! (or is that just my store?!)

2) You will also need various squares of craft felt for the stars and ornaments. I actually purchased a stack of felt for $8.99 on Amazon (HERE) that came in a gazillion colors. But you could also pick up sheets of felt at Michaels, Hobby Lobby, or Walmart and they will cost you about $0.25-$0.33 each.

3) Warm up your hot glue gun. I think I used about 4-5 sticks of glue for this craft.

4) Remind yourself that this is a RUSTIC looking tree and that to your child it will look PERFECT.

5) To cut out the tree, fold your fabric in half and cut out the branches (sort of like when you'd fold the construction paper as a kid to make hearts). It really does not have to look perfect - it will look cute when you unfold it. 

6) For the ornaments, just cut out various shapes. They look way cuter when they are embellished with another color, so you'll just use your felt scraps to add designs to them. 

8) Don't forget the star! Again, it does not have to be perfectly symmetrical. Repeat after me ... RUSTIC.

9) For my tree stump, I cut strips of a lighter brown felt to add some details. You can certainly skip this step, but I promise it is easier than it looks. 

Now, stand back and admire this beauty.

BAM. 

Instant fun.

In all honesty, this held her attention for so long and is a great educational tool -- you can talk about colors, shapes, sizes of ornaments. And the total cost for one tree is definitely less than $10. 

So seriously ... how easy is that?!