We are so thrilled today to have a brand new amazing contributor join us for our third post in our 12 Projects of Christmas! Emily has a beautiful style, which she brought to her Christmas decor with a gorgeous and easy rustic driftwood Christmas tree skirt — give Emily a warm welcome!
Happy Holidays all you Remodelaholics!! I’m Emily from Table + Hearth where I share DIY projects, home decor ideas, crafts, and recipes from our little home on the Texas coast. I love figuring out a good DIY project and decorating our home with a coastal-meets-farmhouse design, almost always using some sort of treasure(s) I’ve hauled home from the beach. I’ve been a Remodelaholic fan for years now and am crazy honored and super excited to now be a contributor over here! What better time of year to share my first post with you guys than this holiday season too right?!
Driftwood Christmas Tree Skirt Tutorial
Like everything in our home, our holiday decor is inspired by the nearby beach so I use the same neutral tones, washed out colors, and weathered textures so there’s a lot of white lights, ivory ribbon, beachy ornaments, seashells, and other accents found in nature. I really wanted to bring more “oomph” and texture to our Christmas tree this year so after taking inventory of the FOUR bags of driftwood I’ve accumulated, I came up with this unique tree skirt idea!
Materials Needed
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While the driftwood I used gives the perfect look for a beachy or coastal home, this can easily be done with any kind of twigs or branches you have too. You can also purchase driftwood online if you’re not able to collect it, I know Save-on-Crafts and Etsy have large lots available for purchase.
Plastic garden netting
~1 yard of felt
TONS of driftwood or other wood pieces in various sizes and lengths
Heavy duty scissors
Twine or yarn
Chalk
Tapestry needle
Hot glue gun with lots of sticks
Wide ribbon (optional)
Instructions
I used this plastic hex netting instead of metal netting so that 1) it would be MUCH safer to work with, handle, and store, 2) the smaller openings would offer more support, 3) I could cut it with regular scissors, and 4) it is flexible enough to potentially roll afterwards for storage. Any sort of a plastic mesh or netting you find would work great.
The netting I used was 3′ wide so I started out by making the largest size skirt I could with two half circles which were as wide as the netting, so I could see how big that really would be and cut it down later if needed. To make the circle (if you need one larger than the netting’s width itself, like here), tie some twine to the chalk then stretch the twine to the other edge of the netting and tie it off. Then, while keeping the twine taut, mark the netting in a semi-circle then cut it out with the scissors. Lay this first semi-circle over another section of netting to use as a template for your other half then cut it out too. Cut a small opening in the semi-circles for the tree trunk then tie the two pieces together with pieces of twine.
If we had a bigger space I would have preferred this big tree skirt (I hate when you can’t see the skirt anymore after presents), but for our living room I had to downscale a bit and cut it down by a foot or so using the same chalk method from twine taped in the middle of the circle. If you know how big your skirt needs to be right off the bat you can
work smarter than me and
just cut your semi-circles to half the diameter you need.
Spread the felt out and lay the netting over it, then cut it to size and also cut the center circle out of it. To attach the felt to the netting, carefully use the tapestry needle and twine to tie it to the netting. I tied mine instead of using glue so I hopefully won’t have to worry about it coming separated after use and storage. I started out using a plastic needle I had for crocheting but it had a hard time pushing through the felt and started bending too much, so I switched to a metal one which worked much better.
Keep tying the felt down in scattered places so that it’s securely held down and sturdy, then cut a slit in one half of the circle where the skirt will slide on over the trunk.
If you want to add some ribbon where the skirt will connect while around the tree, cut some holes in the felt near the slit and thread some large pretty ribbon through then tie them how you would like. This step is much easier to do now before there is wood on top of the skirt.
Now you’re ready to start adding your wood! I chose to separate my pieces into long, medium, and short lengths then laid them out on the skirt with the larger/longer pieces towards the edges and smaller ones near the trunk, but you can use whatever pattern or method you’d like of course.
If you’re meticulous like me, you’ll want to play around with and arrange your pieces on the skirt to get them how you want them before gluing them down, otherwise you can glue as you go. Remember, have LOTS of extra glue sticks on hand, so.much.glue! When you get to the bows, just fill in around and under the bows as best you can.
I do suggest putting the skirt around the tree last to keep from having to vacuum the skirt for all the little needles that fall while you’re working on the tree (obviously I did the opposite…).
Now you have a beautiful, unique, and rustic tree skirt this holiday season which will be sure to impress the family! It’s quite the statement piece!
After the season, I plan on carefully rolling the skirt up loosely to store it and if any pieces do come loose you can always glue them back down.
I hope you guys have a wonderful holiday season and I’m looking forward to being back over here regularly sharing more DIY and crafts with you! Until then, I’d love to have you over at Table & Hearth as well where you can see some of my readers’ favorite driftwood and beach-inspired posts:
Driftwood and Acorn Garland
Driftwood Beach Towel Holder
Sand-Covered Bottles
Click here to see our other 12 Projects of Christmas — decor, gift ideas, and more!
More beautiful Christmas tree decorating tips and DIYs:
easy no-sew faux fur tree skirt tutorial
dollar tree designer style Christmas tree decorating
how to decorate an elegant black and gold Christmas tree (with a full video!)
plus check out our YouTube channel (and subscribe, pretty please!) for our how-tos on decorating a huge tree for $50 with dollar store ornaments and decorating a classic rustic woodland Christmas tree.
The post How to Make a Coastal Style Rustic Driftwood Christmas Tree Skirt appeared first on Remodelaholic.