DIY Snowflake Christmas Tree Skirt

Make your own cute, stenciled Snowflake Christmas Tree Skirt with this tutorial!

This year we got our very first real Christmas tree! My parents always always had a real tree growing up, often one we went and cut down ourselves. In fact, there was one year when we drove up to see my grandparents, the ones who lived about two hours north, trooped out into an actual forest, cut our tree, dragged it out of the woods on a sled, tied it to the top of the car and drove it home. And then, as my parents tell it, and they can never do so without laughing, when we got home, every. single. needle was gone. Note to self, trees don’t hold up to highway winds!

Aa and I have had a fake tree for almost ten years. We bought it for our first apartment and it was really starting to look pretty sad. I actually really like the convenience and the cost savings every year. You do miss the smell, but there aren’t needles all over the floor all the time so that’s a plus. So believe it or not, even though we’ve moved into a house, I was still kind of on the fence for real vs. fake. On the fence, that is, until they opened a Christmas tree lot literally two doors down from our front door. Honestly, our neighborhood just keeps getting more and more convenient. It’s kind of ridiculous. After walking past the trees for a couple days before they started selling them and smelling the amazing pine smell, I was sold. So we walked over with O, picked one out and the nice guy working there picked it up carried it home and actually brought it inside and put it in the stand for us! The whole thing took less than 10 minutes! There was even a tree stand the previous owners left under the porch. Perfect!

We decorated it the next day and then I realized our old tree skirt that I made many years ago, wouldn’t fit on this tree. And I don’t know if you’ve looked recently, but nice tree skirts are really not cheap. I was kind of shocked. I guess it’s not something  you buy more than once or twice in your life so that’s why? Anyway, I decided to make my own and I managed to do with only things I already had for a grand total of $0! Can’t beat that, can you?! Of course, if you are a normal person who doesn’t hoard craft supplies, this skirt might cost about $10 give or take. Not bad, right? I’m kind of a minimalist when it comes to holiday decorations but you could add some colors if you want yours a little more bold. Here’s how I did it:

DIY Snowflake Christmas Tree Skirt

1.5 yards fabric for front of tree skirt

1.5 yards fabric for back of tree skirt

Fabric Paint

Freezer Paper and Silhouette Machine

(Don’t have a Silhouette or other cutting machine? Here are some great snowflake stencils!)

1. I laid my back fabric down on the floor, right side UP. Then I laid my front fabric on top, right side DOWN. To find the center of the fabric. I first folded it diagonally from edge to edge, this created a square as wide as the fabric is in both directions. In my case it was standard 45″ fabric so I ended up with a 45″ square.

2. Next, I folded the triangle diagonally one more time. The point on the left is now the center of that 45″ square! I marked that with a fabric pen.

3. I unfolded the top fabric and here’s my trick for drawing large circles. I took a piece of string and tied one end around my fabric pen. Then hold the loose end down tightly with one hand on top of the center point that you marked and at the same time, use your other hand to stretch the string taught and draw a circle. My string was half the width of my square, or about 22 inches. And however long the string is will be the radius of your circle! Hopefully that makes sense, this was one of those times when I wish I had 8 arms so I could have taken a picture for you while I was doing it…

4.  Draw a smaller circle around the same center point for the tree trunk. Mine had a diameter of about 8 inches. Next, I smoothed both layers of fabric out and pinned them together near the cut lines. 5. Then I cut through both layers of fabric along both cut lines so it looked like a doughnut. Then I cut through one side of the doughnut. This is how you get it around the tree. 6. I wanted a way to secure the tree skirt so I cut a long strip of velcro. And instead of separating the front and back fabrics and then trying to line them up again later, I just opened them up along the straight cut edge. Remember the right sides of your fabrics are INSIDE right now. Pin one piece of the velcro inside on the front fabric (top in the photo) and pin the other, on the other side on the back fabric (bottom in the photo) like I’ve shown in the picture.  Then stitch around the edges of the velcro to secure it but be sure to ONLY sew it to either the front or back piece of fabric that you pinned it to. Do  not sew it to both layers! 

7. Now close back up those straight edges so the velcro is inside. Now sew all the way around all of the edges of the doughnut shape including along the straight edges with a 1/2″ seam. Make sure to leave a 6″-8″ opening along one side of the straight edge so you can turn it right side out.

8. Clip around the curves being careful not to clip your stitches and then turn the tree skirt right side out. Iron it and then topstitch all the way around with a 1/4″ seam. Use that topstitch to close the opening that you used for turning.

9.Now you’re ready to stencil! I loaded freezer paper into my Silhouette machine with the shiny side up on the cutting mat. I used a blade depth of 2, speed of 2 and width of 10 and that seemed to work for me.  I cut out a whole bunch of snowflake shapes.

10. Iron your stencils to the tree skirt wherever you want them. I put a border of half snowflakes along the bottom edge and them sprinkled more snowflakes around the rest of the tree skirt. I cover freezer paper stenciling more in depth here or here if you’ve never done it before! I find it works best to peel the freezer paper off while the paint is still a little wet. 

11. When the paint is dry you’re all done! Enjoy your new tree skirt!

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Cassie May

Craft and Knitwear Designer at Little Red Window Design

Welcome to Little Red Window! I’m Cassie, a professional craft and knitwear designer working in the field for more than 10 years. I have a degree in Art History from Northwestern University and a Master's Degree in Architecture and Design from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. I've designed more than 300 separate knitting patterns, hundreds of craft projects, and I love to bring joy to your crafts and knitting with well-designed, easy to understand tutorials and patterns.

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