Wonderful Felt Christmas Tree Made From Sweaters

My husband doesn’t get it, what he considers rubbish I look at as a recycling challenge. I do get a kick of making crafts out of the scaps of other projects. This Christmas felt tree project is one of my more successful ones.

I save all the families old wool sweaters and felt them for repurposing. Felting wool sweaters are just basically shrinking them in a hot wash so they would only fit a small child.

As there are no longer any toddlers in my house I keep these sweaters for crafting, no need to cry over spoilt wool anymore!

When it happens with one of my husband’s sweaters he gets suspicious now and thinks I do it accidentally on purpose (in some cases he might be right!)

Friends and family also hand me their old wool sweaters to repurpose. A couple of weeks ago I made a lovely soft recycled sweater blanket and then out of the scraps some gorgeous felt flowers for a wreath.
 

I still had a pile of sweater felt scraps and decided to make them into a cute felt Christmas tree. In fact, I made a few of these Christmas trees as they make a lovely festive decoration on the mantle.

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Recycled Sweater Scraps Into Cute Felt Christmas Tree

What you need to make a felt Christmas tree

Felted Sweater Scraps – (you can of course use craft felt). To felt your sweaters, just put them into a hot wash in the washing machine as I did with my sweater mountain pillows.

Don’t worry if your sweaters don’t felt in the machine, as long as they don’t unravel and fray when cut, you can still use them for this craft. If a sweater has been knitted by machine often it will not fray when cut.

• Cardboard tube (toilet roll or kitchen paper tube)
• Fabric Mod Podge
• Hot glue gun
• Scissors
• Tape
• Twigs for the trunk
• Small Wood Slice

How to make Felted Christmas Trees

1.. The first thing to do is to make a cardboard cone. Cut the cardboard tube lengthways and then roll it into a cone shape. Secure with tape and trim off excess cardboard so that the base is even.

There is another tutorial to make cardboard cones out of pizza bases with this upcycled denim Christmas trees tutorial. This is handy if you want to make larger felted Christmas trees.

2. Next, cut the felt sweater scraps into zig-zag strips approximately 1″ wide. You can use pinking shears for this, but I think you get a better shape by doing it by hand.

You will need enough felt strips to cover the whole of the cardboard cone.

3. Then, starting at the bottom of the cardboard cone, glue a strip of cut felt around the bottom of the cone. Then glue another one above this overlapping slightly as you go. Continue until the whole of the cone is covered.

4. Finally, to make the trunk of the tree simple glue a twig to the center of the wood slice using a hot glue gun. Then glue the top of the twig to the inside of the cone. This gives the trees a natural rustic look.

Another fun alternative to the wood slice base is to use cotton reels, as I did with these mini tartan Christmas trees.

It’s fun to make these trees in different shades of sweater felt. They are so easy to make. I’m working on having a whole forest of felt trees in different shades for my Christmas mantle. If you have any felt scraps left over, then I suggest using them to make sweater felt balls.

Every year, I make new upcycled tabletop mini Christmas trees for the mantle. As well as these felt Christmas trees, I’ve also made some other upcycled sweater felt trees, but these had more of a Scandinavian feel to them.
 

Crafting with old sweaters is one of my favourite fabrics to upcycle. I keep all the wool scraps from my larger upcycle to craft for small projects for Christmas. Check out these other Christmas sweater crafts.

• Handmade sweater felt ornaments
• Scandi woven hearts – this combines both repurposed sweaters and denim
• Felt tassels from sweaters
• Cookie-cutter Christmas ornaments
• Funky felt garlands – this upcycled Christmas craft uses the smallest of sweater felt scraps.

Visit allfreechristmascrafts.com for more tabletop Christmas tree ideas.