Friday, March 11, 2011

St. Patrick's Day Tree and Patchwork Ornament Tutorial

Some of you will remember this post on my quest to decorate a tree for every holiday for my son's room. Well let me introduce you to our second effort of the year...the St. Patty's Tree. 



Admittedly, it is a bit difficult to see the details of this tree from afar because everything is green JUST LIKE THE TREE. It looks even cuter with the lights on! You'll notice the green pom-pom ornaments as filler, but the star of the show is this patchwork ball ornament. 


I got this idea from my glorious Mom who used to make them at Christmas time for our tree when I was growing up.  They are made from fabric and styrofoam balls. That's it. Here's how I did it:


First, buy some St. Patty's fabric from your local fabric store.  Nothing fancy! Just the cheap cutesy stuff. The smallest amount you can purchase at our store is 1/8 of a yard, which is all I needed. I decided on five prints and two solids.


Next, gather some styrofoam balls. You can use any size you like. Then you'll want to cut your fabric into squares - roughly 3x3 inches. When I say roughly, I'm not kidding. There is nothing precise about this project.




To do the patchwork you'll need a butter knife. (Do NOT use a sharp knife! Trust me when I tell you that I know this from experience!!!) Lay your fabric square on the ball.  Working about a 1/4 of an inch from the fabric edge, simply push the fabric down into the ball with the tip of the butter knife. Do this all the way around the square of fabric.




Now lay your next square adjacent to the one you just patched into your ball and do it again. Try to work in as large a patch as possible, filling the white space. Inevitably, you'll end up with an extra small foam bit or two for which you can further trim a square and patch it over. Adds more character! That's the beauty of patchwork.


You can use ribbon to hot glue a string to hang them from your tree, but I opted to just position them between the limbs. Aren't they just so fun?!?! It's like little tiny quilts all over the tree.


Patchwork Balls copy

Thanks for the idea Mom!!!








Linking to:

Join  us Saturdays at tatertotsandjello.com for the weekend wrap  up           party!
Tidy Mom I'm Lovin It FridaysTip Junkie handmade projectsToday's Creative BlogIt's a Keeper.

8 comments:

Savannah said...

SO CUTE! STopping in from the weekend wrap up party at TT&J! LOve your blog BTW!

Anonymous said...

Those are completely adorable & I love how you could use them with any holiday or season. Definitely going to try this one. Thanks for linking them up!

Gretchen said...

Thanks ladies! I plan to try a different spin on this for an Easter project soon. Stay tuned...

Gretchen said...

Thanks for giving us a shout out on your blog!

Anonymous said...

Oh Thank you Mom is right!! My Mom used to make them for Christmas ornaments and for Easter eggs and all of them were given away apparently because until now I had forgotten all about them. Finally a way to use up those little pieces of fabric I couldn't bear to toss out. Can't wait to see your next tree...
I don't have a blog, but I found you on Whipperberry. I'm bookmarking you now (:

Hippie Housewife said...

Those are so cute! What a fun and easy project. Thanks for sharing!

JanaLee Pickett said...

These are so cute! I can see doing this some thing on different shapes of styrofoam! What I'm wondering is how well does the fabric stay? I was thinking of little gift ideas, but I wouldn't want them to fall apart after I game them away...

Anonymous said...

Such a cute idea! Last year after Christmas I bought a little pink tree on sale. I planned to use it at Valentine's day this year (wich I did). I loved it so much I decided to use it for more holidays. Since I love all things pink and green, a St. Patrick's Day tree will be perfect. I was looking for some cute ideas for tree ornaments and found your post. I probably have enough already for my St. Patrick's Day tree but this can be used for any holiday...love it!

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...