DIY Christmas Tree

This year my family got very crafty with our tree.  Almost all of the ornaments are DIY or vintage.

We were inspired by the DIY movement and whimsy that hand made decorations add to the tree.

It was a fun family effort to make different ornaments for the tree out of different mediums.

Here are some of our DIY Christmas tree decoration instructions:

• Yarn Balls: We bought Styrofoam balls and skeins of yarn and just went to town wrapping the Styrofoam in the yarn. This was a quick and easy way to have DIY yarn ball ornaments on the tree! 
• Felt Flowers: I have to give my mom credit for these.  She cut out flower shapes from felt and hand sewed a front and back to make tiny flower pillows.  Then she hand stitched colored thread around the edges of the flower to give it a hand made look.  She then added some tiny felt flower and silk flower pieces in the middle, and then made the center of the flower either out of buttons, rhinestones or tiny silk flowers to finish the ornament off.
• Pom-Pom Garland: My mom also made this garland where she basically glued every little pom-pom on the ribbon to create a fun and colorful garland.  I think this is my favorite part of the tree--it's so colorful, fun and I love anything with pom-poms!
• Fabric Collage Ornaments: My whole family made a set of fabric collaged ornaments.  We bought pieces of fabric at the craft store.  Then we cut out ornament shapes from card stock and covered them in a collage of different fabric pieces, prints and shapes.

Another cool thing we used for garland were scarves.  We bought fun and brightly colored knitted scarves at Old Navy and used them as large garlands on the tree.  This added to the hand made look of the tree, and the resourceful part is that we can wear these scarves after the Holidays when they come off the tree!

Over the past couple years my parents have collected some really cool vintage ornaments from various vintage craft fairs, so having these retro ornaments on the tree make it incredibly nostalgic.

A DIY tree is fun, interactive and memorable.  The best part is that it is pretty low budget too, and all it takes are a few collaborative crafty pieces to be made to spice up your current collection of ornaments.