DIY Tulle Christmas Tree
As soon as I discovered how awesome and easy to work with tulle is - I started to look for more projects that I can incorporate it into. It’s inexpensive, versatile, and it doesn’t fray. Win, win, win! After I finished my ribbon trees - I wanted to try something with tulle in tree format. And this tulle Christmas tree tutorial was born!
I love it so much I have plans to make one for several of my friends - and you should too! This project is very inexpensive and requires only very basic sewing. It came together in about an hour and a half (including cutting time for the tulle).
Materials Needed
- 3-3 ½ yards of tulle (color of your preference - I used a very dark green)
- small wooden disc (the one I used was 3 ½” wide)
- dowel rod (the one I used was 12″ long)
- hot glue gun and glue
- needle and thread (color matching the tulle)
- scissors
- yard stick or measuring tape
- ribbon edged yard (or some other topper)
- small string of battery powered lights
Step 1 - Glue Dowel Rod to Wooden Base
In order to have something to put all this tulle on - you need to glue the dowel rod to the base. Heat up that hot glue gun and be generous - the more glue the sturdier the base. And also patient - because once you put it on, you’ll need to hold it upright until the glue cools otherwise you’ll have a leaning tree.
Step 2 - Cut Out Tulle Strips
The tulle I bought was 3 yards in length and 54″ wide but it was folded in half on the bolt. I kept it folded in half while I was cutting it because it was easier to work with that way. In order to give each circle the fluffiness I was looking for - I used 2 strips of 54″ wide tulle. The total length of tulle was 108″ worth for each circle. The width for each of the circles (and how many circles) is listed below.
- 6″ - 2 circles
- 5 ½” - 1 circle
- 5″ - 1 circle
- 4 ½” - 1 circle
- 4 ¼” - 1 circle
- 4″ - 1 circle
- 3 ½” - 1 circle
- 3″ - 1 circle
- 2 ½” - 1 circle
- 2″ - 1 circle
- 1 ½” - 1 circle
- 1″ - 1 circle
- ½” - 1 circle
I should have captured an image of the piles of cut tulle strips - but I didn’t!
Step 3 - Sew Tulle Layers
The cutting is a bit tedious, but the fun part is the sewing because it goes super fast and the results are fabulous! I worked from the bottom up (so widest strips first.) Grab one of your folded in half strips of tulle. The tulle below is red because the pictures from the green tulle didn’t turn out so great. These are a staged recreation!
Now thread your needle with a good amount of thread (I used the technique where you fold the thread completely in half and knot the end with both pieces together.) Begin by inserting your needle through the back side of one side.
Then, pull your tulle taut, and insert your needle through the front side. Continue zig-zagging back and forth until your needle is full of tulle. Push that tulle onto the thread and continue what you were doing.
Continue doing this until you have two strips folded onto the thread. You should have something that looks like the picture below. You’ll use the two tails of thread to create a loop.
Now, pull the thread tight (but try and leave a little loop) and tie a knot. Tie another knot or two to make sure it’s nice and solid.
Then fluff your tulle into a circle.
You can see there’s enough room left in the middle for my pinkie finger. That was the guide I used to make sure it would fit over the dowel.
Since the strips of tulle are all cut out - this work requires very little brain power. It’s a great time to binge watch your favorite show while you sew your circles.
Step 4 - Layer Tulle on Dowel
If you start with the widest first and work your way smaller - you can simply place them on the dowel as you go.
Here’s a shot of all of the layers all laid out on my kitchen table.
And as I started to layer them on the dowel.
Step 5 - Add Topper
I debated about what to put on top both to finish it off and to cover that little tiny piece of dowel rod that was showing. Luckily, I had some cute wire edged Christmas ribbon left over from another project so I opted to use that. I grabbed some floral wire and simply created loops and tied the wire right in the middle of the loops.
I cut a small piece of the ribbon and hot glued it over the wire in the middle of the loops. Then, I bent them into the shape I was looking for. Lastly, I hot glued it to the top of the tree and voíla!
Step 6 - Add Lights
I loved how the tree was looking at this point, but it just needed SOMETHING more. A friend of mine (hi Lori!) just happened to have gotten some of these fabulous little battery powered lights at a clearance sale. And they were JUST what the tree needed!