Trying to be creative ....

If you follow my blog regularly you will know by now that I am not particularly creative; I can follow patterns and make all sorts of things, whether knitting, crochet, sewing, smocking or whatever but making up my own ideas is something I cannot do.  So once again the idea is not my own but I have tried to make my own version.

Before last Christmas a friend at Higham Piecemakers showed us a Christmas Tree that she had bought at a craft fair and it was already beginning to fall apart as it was only glued.  We thought we could do better and so here it is.

What are these?

Once you have collected these - oh yes, they are milk carton tops and it doesn't matter what colour they are - red, blue, green or orange, but they should be the same size.  You can add more for a bigger tree or even make a smaller tree using juice carton tops.

These are my templates as you will need circles of fabric 4" (10cm) in diameter to cover the top and circles of wadding 1.5" (3.8cm) in diameter to pad the top.

I sewed running stitches round the circle of the fabric and after putting the wadding on the top side of the top, drew up the fabric to fit the top.  (Sorry lots of 'tops' there!)  I tightened the fabric and stitched everything in place AND LEFT THE END IN PLACE.  Do NOT cut it off.

Then using these ends I sewed all the circles together making sure they were firmly sewn together and again I left the thread ends of the circles round the edges of the tree and did NOT cut them off.

Slightly out of focus but the backs.

I added some embellishment to the plainer fabrics

It took me a while to work out what to do next because this had to be mounted on card and I did not want any glueing as in the original I had seen.

I machined two triangles of fabric together and then cut out the shape of the tree at the bottom and hemmed in the raw edges,  Finally using the loose threads that I had left I sewed the outside tops to the fabric card and tah dah - a cheap and cheerful Christmas tree.

If I was keeping one of these for myself I would make a Dorset Button to go on the top as a star and hang a ribbon through it.  However it will be sold on the sales table at the Higham Piecemakers Exhibition so I will just add a ring on the back and put some nice ribbon through it.  A cheap and cheerful Christmas decoration.