I’ve been a little MIA this week I know. If you recall in my last post I was home with a sick baby last Monday, well guess who got it next? So I have spent this week resting up and preparing for an awesome series I’ve planned for you all. I am spending the next 15 days posting a new Christmas project each day that is $15 or less. So I’m calling it my 15 Christmas Crafts Under $15 series! I love decorating for Christmas, but decorations are not cheap. And if you’re like me, you probably see things in stores, and think, hmm I could make that. Why pay $20 for something you could make for just a couple of bucks? So here’s my list of Christmas projects you can do on the cheap (by the way, most of these projects cost way less that $15!) As I’ve probably said before I love Pinterest. I wish it was my job to get paid to pin things all day long (I would totally be rich, haha). Some of these projects are ones you can find on Pinterest. A couple are some originals I have thought up, and a couple are my spin on some projects I’ve found on Pinterest.
Enter our first Christmas Craft: the yarn wrapped tree!
I love the way yarn looks wrapped around things, I’m not sure what it is about it I love, but I think it looks great. Here is how you make these cute, easy trees.
First you need to make the base. You can buy styrofoam cones, but since this series is all about doing things cheaply, I made my own cones out of cardstock and a paper plate. I used hot glue to secure the cones. Eek, excuse the mess on the table in the background!!
Next add a line of hot glue near the tip of the tree along the seam. Then place the end of your yarn on this line of glue.
Then begin wrapping your yarn. You may need to add a little more hot glue to the tip to get the yarn to stay in place while you begin wrapping. As I went down the tree, every 10 rows or so I would add a dot of hot glue to help keep the yarn in place. Then once you get to the bottom, hot glue the yarn all the way around the last row on the tree. The first tree I did, I lined up the yarn neatly, but then while I was gluing around the bottom, the top half got loosened and shifted a bit. While the nice, tightly wrapped look is nice, I actually liked the way the loosened, messier part looked (you can see the smallest tree is the one where this happened; the top is loose, and the bottom in neat and tight). So on the next two I didn’t worry about staying lined up when I wrapped the yarn, I just made sure you couldn’t see the white anywhere. You could make as many of these little cute trees and set them up along a mantle (I don’t have one, boo). I think this would also look cute with some of that fancy yarn with fibers sticking out of it. I’m not a knitter, so I don’t know that official name for that yarn.
So here’s the breakdown on price. I already had the cardstock and paper plate so that was free (you could also use a cereal box broken down, anything with a little bit of structure to it). I had to buy the yarn because I didn’t have any colors that would work. Joann had the skeins I used on sale for 2 for $5, plus I used a 15% off coupon. So my grand total for this project was $4.25, although if you already have yarn, it could be free! It doesn’t use much yarn at all, so you could use leftovers you had from another project.
See you tomorrow for the next Christmas Craft Under $15!
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