I just finished decorating our mantle at The Shabby Tree and I wanted a small decorative tree to place in the center of the mantle. I have a lot of chunky yarn and it is always so easy to craft with.
The supplies I will be using are:
1. Paper towel roll
2. Cream chunky yarn
3. Brown lunch bags
4. Hot glue
5. Scissors
6. Fish tank gravel
7. Baggie
8. Wire tinsel
You will be using the paper towel roll as the trunk of your tree.
You will take a lunch bag and crumble it together but keeping in long.
The next step is to start glueing the crumbled lunch bags to the paper towel roll. Decide how much of a trunk you want and then start glueing from there.
You will continue to add more hot glue as you keep wrapping. The bags are going to form the shape of your tree. You can make your tree as fat or as skinny as you want.
I over lapped my bags on the bottom of my tree and wrapped less bags as I go the top of the tree.
I squeezed the top of the paper towel roll as I wrapped the bags to the top of my tree.
Once your tree is formed it is time to start glueing the chunky yarn on. I am starting at the bottom base of my tree and working my way up to the top. You will continue to add hot glue as you wrap the yarn around the tree.
As I got to the top of the tree I cut the yarn and glued the end into the top of the tree.
I added some silver tinsel to my tree. This is an optional step but I like the sparkle that the tinsel gives to my tree.
I glued the end of the tinsel into the chunky yarn and then wrapped it around to the top of the tree. You can add some more glue the other end of the tinsel and glue it in place.
I am using a wire tinsel that I got from Walmart. Because my tinsel has wire I was able to form a star for the top of my tree. I left a stem on the star so that I can tuck it into the top of the tree.
I ripped a few pieces of the brown paper bags into strips. I crumbled the strips and glued them to the trunk of my tree.
Once my trunk was covered with the brown paper strips I added some of the fish tank gravel up into the trunk. I poured a small amount of the fish tank gravel into a baggie and then shoved it up into the paper towel roll. This gives my trunk some weight so that my tree will stand straight and not fall over.
This tree is so easy to make and can be created so many different ways. You can use any color chunky yarn that will match your Christmas decor. You all know that I love using neutrals throughout my home. This tree turned out amazing and looks so good on our mantle.
