Homemade Christmas gift idea

Christmas is about a week away. This is still crazy to me. I can’t believe how fast time flies. Really, it’s been making me grateful for every single day. Two months from now, I’ll look back at this time and probably won’t remember this day, at least not specifically. Nothing particularly special is happening today. But I will look back and remember how quickly the days went by and hope that I at least enjoyed the days as they went. It’s really easy to say, “I can’t wait for this day to be over.” I used to say that all the time when I was in college. But I’ve been thinking about those words a lot lately and I don’t want to say them anymore. I only get a certain number of days in my life and each one of them will have some kind of effect on how my tomorrows will be. If I’m wishing my days away, it’s just about not worth my even having them. I think I’ve really been thinking about this lately because as we get closer to Christmas, it’s really easy to wish our days away as we stress and work, bake & wrap, shop & dodge, decorate & visit. But these are the days to be enjoyed – even if they are busy ones! That’s how I’m feeling this Christmas.

Anyway, I was originally writing this post to share an idea for a Christmas neighbor/friend gift, not to get all sentimental. So, I’ll still share my idea. These are candy filled Christmas trees.
Aren't they so cute?!? I really just love them! They are pretty simple to make, but it does take some time because you have to let glue dry. I figured I’d share a tutorial on how to make them yourself if you should be feeling ambitious . . . 8 days before Christmas. :)

Instructions for Felt Christmas Tree:

What you’ll need:
*Template/pattern (or free-hand one yourself -- I have a template I made that I would be happy to e-mail to anyone who would like one already made)
*Green Felt (just over a yard makes 4 trees)
*Tacky Glue
*Hot Glue (this is optional, I just preferred it for the quicker dry towards the ends of the project)
*Desired Embellishments (I used googly eyes, red pompoms, red ribbon, and holiday cording, which I found at WalMart)
*Candy, or other goodies, to fill the trees (we discovered that it took about 1 whole bag of kisses/hugs to fill each tree to a good, desired level)
Note: These trees stand about 10" tall when complete. It would probably be easy to make smaller ones if you wanted.

Instructions:
Fold your felt in half and pin it in place. Felt is known for its ability to stick without moving but trust me that pinning will still be helpful when cutting.

Take your template (I had an old tree I used for my original template) and trace onto the felt the shape you’d like to cut. I used a green permanent marker, which was just barely visible on the felt if I was looking for it. However, you could also just pin the template/pattern onto the felt and cut that way.

Cut out your shape. You should have two pieces of the same shape since you doubled the felt.

Draw a mouth on one piece of the felt {only one piece – you really don’t want a mouth on both} and cut it out.


Using your tacky glue, trace the outline of the back piece of felt, leaving the bottom of the tree - in other words, don't glue the bottom of the tree (this is very important for adding the bottom later). Line up the top piece of felt with the bottom one and press firmly on all the edges to be sure the glue will stick. Allow to dry for about 1-1/2 hours.

Now for the bottom of the tree. Take the odd shaped piece of felt {I really don't know what shape to call it . . . kind of like an open pea pod, sorta} and fold it in half {this makes the gluing easier - the photo above is of the felt folded in half}. Trace one side of the felt tree with tacky glue and put the bottom piece in its respective place on the tree, pressing on the glued portion to help seal the edges.


Repeat with the other half of the tree so the entire bottom piece is glued to the tree. Don’t worry too much if the corners won’t stay. We’ll fix those later. Allow to dry about 1-1/2 hours.
When you come back to your trees, they should be dry. If the corners aren’t glued well, you can use the hot glue to help keep them down or use tacky glue again. The problem with the tacky glue is that you have to sit there holding it in place so the corners will dry properly. The hot glue doesn’t take as long. Now trim any edges where the felt doesn’t line up exactly and add your embellishments. These are the ones I went with. Dan took some ribbon and tied it like a neck tie. We then glued the tie in place and cut off the extra pieces {those were the trees Dan gave the families he home teaches!}. My friend Stephanie tied bows for me {I just can't seem to tie bows . . . someday I will learn} and I put those, as well as some holiday cording along the bottom of the trees I gave to the sisters I visit teach. I thought of the cording as a tree skirt, but Dan insisted it was a necklace. View as you like. :)
So cute! Now fill the trees with the desired goodies and you have an easy, handmade gift to give someone!

{I also thought of using mini pompoms to put “lights” on the tree and also of tacking ribbon all the way around it for a tinsel-like look.}