Painted Fabric Christmas Tree Skirt

Are you thinking about Christmas yet?  Up here in Canada, Thanksgiving and Halloween are over so my thoughts have already turned to Christmas 😉

One of the things I wanted to make this year, was a new tree skirt for my rustic Christmas tree.  My thin, natural tree makes me happy every time I look at it.  It has real bark covering the trunk and looks quite real.  I wanted a tree skirt that was rustic and simple.  One that it didn’t take away from the look of the tree.
I have had this stash of muslin and figured it would work well.  (A drop cloth is also a good fabric for a project like this.)

Fortunately I have a round table and it is the size I needed for the skirt so making the circle was easy.  I laid the muslin on my table and just cut around the edge.

If you don’t happen to have a conveniently round table, I would fold the fabric in half or quarters and then cut it so that you end up with a nice, round circle.  Wanting the tree skirt to be rustic, I chose one of Country Chic’s new Fall colours; Hollow Hill to paint the fabric.  When painting fabric, always wet your fabric first.  Wetting the fabric will help the paint absorb and you will get a more even finish.

I used a mix of 1:1 water to paint for this project.  That ratio left a nice saturated colour still but thinned out the paint so that it wouldn’t be overly crunchy and stiff when it dried.  It also left the paint thick enough to brush on.

As you can see, I didn’t even iron the fabric.  I wanted it to have some texture and depth to it so left it crinkly.
After it was painted, I cut a circle in the middle and a slice up one side so that it would easily fit around the trunk.  To finish off the skirt, I trimmed it with some burlap ribbon.  The ribbon was easy to glue on and covered up the edge of the skirt eliminating any need for sewing. The paint left the fabric a little stiff which was ideal for a tree skirt.  The slight stiffness gave it some shape and form which I really liked.

Painted fabric tends to have a different look and feel and that uniqueness adds something special.  

I love that you could completely customize this project to match any decor.  You could change the colour and trim and have a whole different look.  

Join me!

On Tuesday, November 22 at 7 pm I will be doing a Facebook Live demo for Hometalk on this project.  Join me for tips on painting fabric, step-by-step directions for this project and some variations on the painted tree skirt.

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