{no sew} Ruffled Ombre Tree Skirt Tutorial

With an eclectic family room makeover in progress, we’re decorating the Christmas tree with fun non-traditional colors for Christmas. I know – my house is a mish mash of themes but I do what I love and I’m loving walking from room to room with a different scene. However, finding a colorful non-traditional tree skirt is nearly impossible. Then I remembered that few years ago, I stumbled across a no-sew ruffled tree skirt and although I don’t remember where I saw it, I remember it was a lot easier than I imagined.

It’s much harder to explain how to do it in words than actually working on this. It’s so easy! This could even be done using a sewing machine (which was my plan but I had to go to Plan B when my sewing machine stopped working). It is time consuming but can be done in one day if you work on it a lot. I made mine in two days. Crank up the Christmas tunes!

Here’s how I did it: 

Materials:

• round vinyl/flannel back table cloth
• 5 colors of lightweight fabric (dark to light in color). I purchased 2 yards of the darkest, 2 yards of the second darkest, 1.5 years of the next color, 1 yard of the lightest colors. Yes, a lot. I bought 7.5 yards of fabric. {Use coupons! Look for sales/clearance fabric.}
• Hot glue (approx. 100 glue sticks) OR swap out hot glue for sewing
• Duct tape

Tools: scissors, iron

Tutorial:

1. My round table cloth was was too large. I started by folding it in half and placing it under the tree. This gave me an idea of where I’d want to cut. I didn’t measure. Just decided I needed to cut off about 10-12 inches. 2. I folded the half circle table cloth in half again to create a pie-slice shape. Then just cut {rounding it} approx. 10″ from the outer edge. 3. Snip the pointed edge of the folded table cloth. 4. Cut along one fold from outer circle to inner. 5. Place under the tree and decide if more needs to be trimmed. And if I liked the “Twister” vibe of my vinyl table cloth, I’d be done! But, um. No. Something better in mind.

Tip: cover edges of smaller hole {where tree trunk will be}  with duct tape. I used FrogTape. This little area is susceptible to tearing…tape will help prevent tears.

6. Spread out fabric {keep folded}. Any size strips will do. Larger widths will create bigger ruffles. Smaller widths, smaller/more ruffles. I decided on small 4 1/2 inch wide strips. I marked the fabric and cut my strips (no need to be a perfectionist about perfectly straight strips but keep as straight as possible). Length doesn’t matter. Most of my fabric was 54″ wide, but one of my fabrics had a smaller width.

A lot of strips! 7. Time to iron. And iron. And iron some more.

Take a break.

8. Start at the outer edge, along the vertical cut (the back of the tree skirt). Folded edge towards you, raw edge will be glued. Place the strip of fabric so it hangs off the vinyl table cloth.  I applied hot glue to the end of a strip of fabric, attach to back side on flannel and wrap around to the front of the vinyl (only about an inch or so on the back). 9. I worked in about 4-6inch sections (just eye-balling it, making sure to hide the outer edge of the vinyl table cloth. I applied a line of hot glue, then pressed the raw edge of the folded fabric strip onto the hot glue line. AS I WENT, I’d create “pinch” pleats (glue a straight 2-3 inches, fold the fabric up towards you, then press down another 2-3 inches of fabric strait onto the hot glue line.

10. Insert a small amount of hot glue into the folded fabric. Press down flat.

11. Attach the little flaps with a dab of hot glue if needed.

12. Repeat and continue. 13. When another strip of fabric is needed, open end of fabric, place the end of the last fabric strip, add some glue and fold. (Just create an extended strip of fabric).

14. When completing the row around the edge of the circle, cut strip of fabric about an inch and fold onto the flannel back and secure in place with hot glue {as shown in step 8}.

15. Continue onto the next row. Since my ruffles were smaller, I used up all of my darkest color then continued onto the next color. Sometimes it was in the middle of a ruffle, most of the time, I ended a color at the end of a row. My fabric mostly ran four rows. Working towards the center, will require less fabric.

16. I noticed that as I worked, my circle wasn’t so perfect anymore. I kept going. Around the trunk area, inner tree skirt, I did have to fill in with fabric strips…again, it’s not perfect…just play with creating more ruffles under what you’ve done, if you see vinyl showing through or have vinyl that’s not circle shaped towards the end. No one will be able to tell…just create pleats/ruffles with the same color to fill in.

17. Near the “trunk” part of the tree skirt, I finished off with a sheer white double ruffle from my scrap supply. You can use wide ribbon…create a double ruffle by hand with a running stitch with thread (no knot) in the center length wise and pulling ends to “gather”. Or use ribbon or bias tape, or follow the same steps but do the last row upside down, gluing raw edge to raw edge, creating pleats/ruffles. Cover hot glued raw edges with thin piece of pretty ribbon using hot glue. 18. I ran a length of duct tape up the ends of the ruffles on the back side just to keep things neatly tucked down.

Looks like an expensive professionally sewn beautiful tree skirt, right? So pretty in any color, even drop cloth or burlap or how about using white flat sheets? You’ll have to let me know if you give this a try {or if you already have!}. I’d love to see it!

Oh – and you will experience some hot glue burns. No sew doesn’t mean no pain. Ouch! But they only hurt for a few seconds.

{Leftover fabric strips were torn into thinner strips and used as garland.} Stop back later this week for Christmas tree pictures!

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