When I was little, my grandma had an ornament on her tree that was kind of like this and I always loved it. It had sequins glued on it instead of buttons, but I was digging through my stash of sewing things and found these cute red buttons and knew they would be perfect for this craft. My girls and I sat down, cranked up the Christmas music and spent a cosy afternoon crafting these little trees up for our Christmas tree. There is some very simple sewing required, but my 8 year old can do it so I know you can too!

You are going to need:

• Green felt
• Green embroidery floss
• buttons
• gems or sequins
• sewing needle
• ribbon
• Tree cookie cutter
• pen or marker
• scissors
• craft glue (optional, use if you have small kids who can’t use needle and thread)

Cut them out….

And now the fun part! Sew or glue on your buttons. You can do as many or as few as you like and this is the part where my girls really have a good time. They can “decorate” their trees any way that they like and I am sure to love it. Now, my 6 and 8 year olds use a needle and thread with no problem, however, if you aren’t comfortable with that it works just as well to glue the buttons on. I would use a craft glue and not school glue though, to ensure durability and a little faster drying power. It also seems to have better sticking abilities.

Now comes the part where I do all of the work and my girls look on. You are going to sew the front and back together using a very simple blanket stitch. I used the same green embroidery floss (2 strands together) and went around the whole tree. When I got to the top, i sandwiched a piece of thin ribbon in before I sewed that section up. This ends up being our hanger.

Because every Christmas tree needs a little shiny bling, I sewed one metal backed jewel to the top of my tree to really finish it off. I love how it looks!

I loved making these with my girls and I think the parts of them that aren’t perfect are what make them so special. My oldest daughter sewed this one together and she left her string hanging out. But I will always remember how proud she was of herself for mastering the stitch and doing it herself. Truly precious and special memories were made one afternoon and I have these sweet little ornaments to remind me of it forever. Experiences like that are so priceless!