Holiday DIY: No-Sew Fleece Trees | Spoonflower Blog
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Looking for a new DIY project to brighten your home during the holidays? These no-sew trees are the perfect way to do just that (and they’ll be done in just an afternoon)! Inspired by Happy Happy Nester’s blog post, this Fleece fat quarter project is perfect for the entire family. (Note: As of March 2023, we are phasing out our Fleece fabric and launching Polartec® Fleece, which will also work great for this project!)

How to Make No-Sew Fleece Trees for the Holidays

Materials

  • 1 fat quarter of Polartec® Fleece (or try using the horizontal split yard Fill-A-Yard™ to make a set of  coordinating trees!) — see which designs we’re using here
  • Poster board or thicker cardstock/paper
  • Pencil and a piece of string
  • Ruler
  • Scissors (for paper and for fabric)
  • Hot glue gun & glue sticks
  • Tree leaf template
  • Marking Tool
  • Optional:

For our trees we used the following dimensions:
12” tall dowel with a 10” cone, 10” tall dowel with an 8” cone and 8” tall dowel with a 6.5” cone.

Holiday DIY: No-Sew Fleece Trees - materials | Spoonflower Blog

For our versions we used the following dimensions:
12” tall dowel with a 10” cone, 10” tall dowel with an 8” cone and 8” tall dowel with a 6.5” cone.

1. Prep and Assemble Your Base and Stand*

To start, pre-drill a hole in the middle of your wooden base that is the same size as your dowel. Decide how tall you want your tree to be and you can either leave it as the full length or cut it down, I’ve pre-cut my dowel to 10” long for this project. Next, hot glue your dowel into your pre-drilled base to secure it in place.

Skip this step if you don’t want your tree to have a base and stand.*

2. Make Your Paper Cone Tree Base

Next, decide how large you want to make your tree. For my 10″ dowel I made an 8″ paper cone. Take your string and tie it to your pencil, then measure out 8″ (or whatever size you want to make your tree). On your piece of paper or poster board, mark a place in the center and place your finger there while still holding the string. With the string taut, draw a circle without moving your finger.

Starting from your mark in the center, use the ruler to draw two straight lines from the mark to the edges of your circle to create a pie shape. Cut out around your circle and be sure to cut out the pie shape. Holding one straight edge in each hand, wrap the paper around itself and tighten it until it forms your desired cone shape. Hot glue the edges down on the outside and inside to secure it.

TIP: Before gluing the conte it into place, try playing around with rolling it tighter or more loosely to see what shape of the tree you prefer.

Make the paper cone base | Spoonflower Blog

3. Choose Your Leaf Style

Print out the PDF leaf template and cut out whichever style you want to use. I’ve used style #4 for a more traditional, pointed tree.

Cut out the tree template | Spoonflower Blog

4. Trace the Template and Cut Out the Fabric

On the wrong side of the fabric, trace the template using a marking tool and cut out at least 3 strips that are the width of the Fleece fat quarter (28″). Keep in mind you may need to cut more or less pieces based on the size of your tree.

TIP: To maximize the fabric when using templates 3 or 4, after tracing one row, flip the template upside down so you just have to draw the straight line across the top of the template. Cut carefully on the middle line.

Cut out the fabric | Spoonflower Blog

5. Cut Out the Tree Top Piece

Using the template trace and cut out two shapes along the fold (in my case this will make two diamond shapes). I’m cutting into the sides of my diamond shapes, this will help me mold it to the top of my tree in step 8.

Cut out the tree top | Spoonflower Blog

6. Glue the Fabric to the Cone

Starting from the bottom edge of your cone, hot glue the end of one of the fabric strips to secure it in place. Start turning the cone so the fabric begins to spiral up, gluing as needed along the way until you’ve made it to the end of the first strip. Taking another strip of fabric, cover the end of the first piece, being careful not to leave any gaps where the paper is visible. Continue gluing as much as needed as you spiral your way up the cone until you reach the very top.

Attach the fabric to the cone | Spoonflower Blog

7. Assemble the Tree

Put some hot glue in the top of the cone and place it on the dowel to secure it. For mine I had a little gap at the top of my cone so I glued through there. If your cone is tighter you might need to put glue on the inside. Hold it in place until the glue sets.

8. Glue the Top Pieces

Using the diamond pieces we cut for the top, put a dot of glue at the top and to keep the tips down. Add the second diamond piece on top in an X and glue it down at the top of the cone to complete your tree!

Glue the top piece to the tree | Spoonflower Blog

Don’t stop at just Fleece trees! Create the ultimate winter wonderland with a paper snowflake table runner featuring Celosia Velvet™.

DIY velvet table runner | Spoonflower Blog

How are you crafting for the holidays? Let us know in the comments below and be sure to tag your makes with #spoonflower so we can see what you’ve created.