How To: Sew Easy Felt Christmas Tree Ornaments

Time for another festive tutorial: how to make simple felt Christmas tree decorations.

 

These ornaments are quick and easy to sew - perfect for beginners! They're also a great way to use up lots of decorative odds and ends from your stash - mix and match embellishments to create a whole set to hang on the tree.

You could also string them on some pretty ribbon to make a holiday garland, maybe with beads or felt balls or pompoms in-between the trees.
 

You will need:

- the templates at the bottom of this post
- dark green felt, brown or red felt (& optional: yellow felt)
- matching sewing threads
- sequins, beads, ricrac, ribbon, mini buttons, embroidery thread, etc to decorate the trees 
- narrow ribbon in red or green
- sewing scissors & a needle

To make the ornaments:

1) Cut out all your felt pieces. For each tree you will need 2 x tree shapes (in green), and 2 x trunk shapes (brown for a natural trunk or red for a pot).

2) Decorate one of the tree shapes. You could use sequins (sewing the sequins on with three stitches of green thread)...

... beads or mini buttons (sewing them on with a double thickness of green thread), or sew a pattern with some colourful embroidery thread (floss).

For my embroidered ornament I divided a length of thread/floss in half (using 3 out of the 6 strands) and stitched overlapping stitches to create little star shapes.

You could also decorate the tree with scraps of ribbon or ricrac. Cut the trim so it overlaps the tree as pictured, and sew it in place with running stitch in matching thread...

... then fold the ends over and secure them in place with a few whip stitches (sewing into the felt but not all the way through it).

You could also cut out a star from yellow felt and sew it to the top of the tree:

3) Use running stitch and matching thread to sew the two trunk / pot pieces together. You only need to sew along three sides, as the top (not sewn) edge will be hidden inside the finished ornament.

4) Add a ribbon loop.

Cut a length of narrow ribbon approx 5 inches (12.5cms) long. Fold it over to form a loop and sew it in position at the top of one of the felt tree shapes using dark green thread. Make sure you sew it to one of the "wrong" sides so the cut ends of the ribbon will be hidden inside the ornament when it's finished.

Sew it in place with whip stitch, sewing into the felt but not all the way through it.

5) Stitch the ornament together.

Hold or pin the two tree pieces together, with "right" sides facing outwards. Use dark green thread and running stitch to sew around the edge, stitching the layers together. When you sew along the bottom of the tree, insert the trunk / pot piece in between the two layers as pictured and sew across it, sewing through all four layers of felt to hold the trunk / pot in place.

When you've finished sewing all the way round the edge of the tree, finish your stitching neatly at the back.

This tutorial is for non commercial use only. Please feel free to borrow photos if you want to blog about this project, but remember to credit me and link back to the original source, and do not reproduce my tutorial on your site. Thanks!

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To print the templates click here to view the template sheet in another window or tab. Make sure you're viewing the image full size then print at 100%. I've added a scale so you can check if your templates have printed out correctly, but you can make them larger or smaller than mine if you prefer.