Ruffle Tree Skirt

Hi,

A few months ago, a friend of mine asked me if I had seen the "no sew ruffle tree skirt" on Pinterest. She thought that it would be a good project for my blog. I had not, but immediately looked it up. I loved it! Plus, my existing tree skirt was in desperate need of a make over. When I found some beautiful unbleached fabric at Hobby Lobby, I knew that it was a project match made in heaven.

Normally, I get inspiration from other people and do something to make it my own. However, I pretty much copied this blog. I would definitely recommend checking it out. She gives great directions, but I have included my own below.

You will need

• 6 yards of fabric
• Glue gun and glue
• Old or cheap tree skirt
• Scissors
• Yard stick
• Sharpie or other pen

*Note 1: The original blog recommends 4 yards of fabric. I cut my strips wider than she did and ended up needing more fabric. Or maybe my ruffles were too tight. Who knows. I used a little less than 6 yards.

*Note 2: The original blog recommends using a rotary cutter. If you have one, use it. I do not have one and it was quite the undertaking to try and cut all of these long strips in a straight line.

Here is what my original tree skirt looked like. I bought it at Target for $3.00 five years ago. It was definitely time for an upgrade.

Say hello to my eager little helper.

First things first, I cut my original 4 yards in half to make the length a little bit more manageable. Notice my helpful little helper :)

 I decided to make my strips 4 1/4" wide. I thought that this would make for less work because the strips were wider. I am not sure that is how it worked out.

First, I made dots with my Sharpie 4 1/4" from the edge of the fabric about every 20". You can see my dot in the photo above. I then place my yardstick so that it connected the dots and created a guideline using yellow highlighter. The highlighter line was only noticeable if you really looked for it.

Next, I cut along the highlighter line to create a long strip. Repeat process until you have cut all of the fabric into strips. It would be some much easier to use a rotary cutter :)

You should have a big pile of strips like this.

Next step is to basically fold the strips to create ruffles and then glue them concentric circles. I found that it was easiest to fold 4-6 ruffles where they would go on the tree skirt and then glue underneath like so.

I started at the very edge and was able to make the skirt bigger that it was before.

When one strip ended, I glued the strips together and continued on with the ruffle pattern.

Once I got to the end of the tree skirt, I felt that it looked a little unfinished. 

 I decided to put a band around the top. I cut a skinny strip, about an inch - inch and half. 

I glued the band around the top of tree skirt, making pleats as necessary, but not ruffling like the rest of the skirt.

Here is the finished product.

I was really pleased with how it turned out and hope that you will be too. Make it your own.

~Kate

Adult Advent Calendar

Hi,

Growing up, one of my favorite parts of Christmas was the advent calendar. My family had several that ranged from the grocery store chocolate to adding an ornament to a small tree. The advent calendar helped build the anticipation and magic of the season and I loved it.

However, as an adult, that grocery store chocolate just doesn't taste as good as I remembered and space is limited in our house for a bigger calendar. Plus, Rob was not very interested in participating and it was just not as fun by myself.

So, when I saw an idea for an adult advent calendar on Pinterest using lotto tickets, I knew that I needed one for my house.  It's only been two days, but my husband and I both look forward to the moment when we get to pull a ticket from the calendar. Plus, we have already won $7 :)

Here is what you will need:

• 24 $1 scratch off lottery tickets - I did 12 Lucky 7's and 12 Jingle Bucks
• 2 $2 scratch off tickets for Christmas day - Jumbo Jingle Bucks
• Foam Core
• Glue Gun
• Paper or cloth for the pockets - I used burlap
• Paper for the numbers on the pockets (optional)
• Sharpie 

*Note: I used burlap because I had it. If I were to do this again, I would use something else that would be a little neater.
First, lay out the lottery tickets in a formation that you like.

Next, use the cloth or paper to measure an appropriate pocket size.

Cut the material into 24 pockets. For me, the Jumbo Jungle Bucks for Christmas day were bigger than the other tickets, so it needed a bigger pocket.

After I had cut all of the squares for the pockets, I cut some squares of paper. I glued the paper squares onto the burlap pockets.

The next step is to write the numbers 1-24 on the smaller pockets and write 25 on the bigger pocket.

Once I had written all of the numbers, I used a hot glue gun to secure the sides and bottom of the burlap to create the pockets.

Don't worry, I did not actually hot glue on my table.

After all of the pockets were glued to the board, it was time to put the lottery tickets in.

Here's what it looked like once all of the tickets were in place.

The next thing that I had to figure out was where I was going to keep our advent calendar. I found these magnets that I had gotten for another project.

I put them on the back of the foam core like so.

I ended up using 5 of the magnet squares, but I got it to stay on the side of our refrigerator. Here is the end product.

I hope that you enjoy this project and the advent season. Make it your own.

~Kate