the TP tree

(For those of you that have NO idea what I am talking about, you can read about it from my post last Christmas…to sum it up, my dad & I have been passing back & forth the same TP roll since 1988…read the story here.)

It was my turn this year.  I had totally forgotten about it until about a week before Christmas.  Well, in order to stump my dad, I knew I better get thinking. 

I remembered a post that I had seen on a blog about making fabric Christmas trees….uh-huh, that’s it! 

Here are the easy instructions to make a Fabric Christmas Tree:

Supplies:

• fabric or ribbon
• hot glue gun
• tree (cone) shaped foam center
• (because I was using mine as a decoy, I also bought a circular foam base for the bottom, so that the hollowed out tree couldn’t easily be spotted.)
• additional ribbon or trinkets if you want to “decorate” your tree  ( I used ribbon bows on the top, but chose not to decorate my tree.)

Directions:

• Cut (or tear) strips of fabric approximately 1inch x 4 inches. (Or cut strips of ribbon)
• Take each strip, place a dot of hot glue on back side of fabric, fold strip in half, gluing it to itself…basically making a folded strip.  You can fluff it open a little at the end.
• Once strips are ready, begin at base and start hot gluing them to the foam.  Each time I began a new row, I shifted slightly, like shingles.
• Keep going all the way to the top.  Your last (top) row should stick out above the top of your foam piece.  (I cut a very small circle and tucked it down inside the top, so that none of the foam would be visible.) 
• To finish it off, I made 3 bows out of ribbon and glued those to the top, helping to close it up slightly. 

My dad has a strong passion for supporting our troops overseas, and his home office is done in red-white-blue, so that is why I chose to use those colors, as oppose to traditional Christmas colors. 

For my tree, my hubby hollowed out the center of the foam, so that the TP roll could easily be inserted and hidden.   

It worked!  I gave my dad this gift for his office on the 21st and after celebrating Christmas on the 25th, I had to give him a clue in order for him to find it! 

We will see what he comes up with for next year!