Hey there! Christmas is quickly approaching and I have tons to do. I haven't bought one.single.gift yet. eek! I better get after that AND decorating. This will be the second Christmas in our house and I really wanted to be able to have cuter holiday decorations up this year. Last year we just used the hand me down stuff we had from our apartment days. Worked just fine but not near as fun as getting to make and buy new stuff! I started with a no sew tree skirt I have seen done a few different ways. You can see the tutorial I most closely followed here. I will repeat the fact that it is NO. SEW. This is amazing news for me as I have not mastered the sewing machine yet. I am working on it, but until then this will have to do! This was a fun DIY project and one of my favorite that I have done yet, but it is a bit tedious in parts and does take a good chunk of time. Great news is that you can do it in bits and pieces if you don't have a big chunk to devote to it.

The materials needed are:

4' x 4' of canvas. I bought 1.5 yard of duck cloth at Wal Mart. Duck cloth is what you will find at many fabric stores as a subsitute for canvas. Another option is painter's canvas from any Home Depot or Lowes
4 yards of linen or cotton. As a super cheap option for this I bought a twin cotton flat sheet from Wal mart.
grosgrain ribbon
sharp scissors (fabric scissors are best)
Hot glue gun and glue stick
Tape measurer

Step 1:

Depending on the method you get your canvas, lay it out flat and make sure it is a square. Cut as needed.
Fold canvas into quarters
Then fold into a triangle

Step 2:

The next step is to cut the base and top of the canvas to get your skirt shape. To make this easier I drew a line to follow. Cut the base of the triangle into a quarter circle. Cut the point of the triangle into a quarter circle. Unfold the canvas to where it is just folded in half. From the middle of the canvas cut a slit all the way down to the bottom. This will create the skirt opening to be wrapped around the tree.

On each side of the slit fold each side over about an inch. On each fold make five one inch cuts down the canvas. This will create spots for you to be able to later lace the ribbon through and tie the skirt.

Step 3:

This is what my prepped canvas looked like before I started with the ruffles.

Step 4:

Next cut the sheet into 3 inch strips. You will want to make a lot of these strips to get you through the skirt. Only a bit time consuming.

Step 5:

Now begin hot gluing the strips to the canvas. Do this in about 6-8 inch increments because hot glue dries super fast.

Step 6:

Ruffle the strips with your fingers as your pressing them to the canvas. This is the longest part of the project, but you can break it up. Be careful not to glue over the cuts you made on the slit for the ribbon.

Step 7:

First layer of ruffling. Only a few more to go!

Step 8:

After all the strips have been glued on flip the skirt over to add the ties. Thread the ends of the ribbon through each cut to be able to tie the skirt together. Other methods suggest gluing ribbon to each side of the slit and then tying them together to secure the skirt. Either method will work. I prefer the lace up method so I don't have to worry about the glue coming undone.

Step 9:

All laced up! You can do this the reverse way to have your ties on the outside of the skirt if you prefer.

Step 10:

And we have a Christmas tree skirt! Total cost $16. I will post pictures once I have my tree up.

I went with a cream color scheme, but there are tons of ways to try. After doing this once I envision incorporating different color fabrics, tulle, glitter, sparkles! The options are endless. This skirt is not machine washable so you may want to try darker colors depending upon where your skirt will be....or if you have black dogs who shed a ridiculous ton of fur every 5 seconds....Like I do. oops! An excuse to try another!