Ruffled Christmas Tree Skirt – An Easy, No-Sew Holiday Craft

A no-sew ruffled Christmas tree skirt is a beautiful way to accent your tree for the holidays. It’s a simple and inexpensive Christmas craft.

I love the look of a ruffled tree skirt, but not the price. So, I decided to create my own DIY Christmas tree skirt. Since my sewing skills aren’t the best, I decided to make a no-sew ruffled tree skirt. The end result was a beautiful tree skirt that is exactly what I wanted at half the cost.

Ruffled Christmas Tree Skirt Supplies

• An old tree skirt, round table cloth or 44″ x 44″ square of fabric
• 2-3 yards of colored fabric
• Hot glue gun and a package of glue sticks
• Several hours and some patience

There are several ways to make this project even simpler. If you have an old tree skirt or round table cloth in storage, use it as the base to DIY a new Christmas tree skirt. Otherwise, you can purchase a cheap fabric, like muslin, and cut it into a skirt for the base. Have the fabric store cut the fabric into a 44″ x 44″ square for you to make things easier.

For the colored fabric, I purchased two yards of white cotton fabric and three yards of green cotton fabric. I love green and white at the holidays. Plus, the two colors are neutral enough to coordinate with most color schemes if I decide to switch up my decor.

How to Create a No-Sew Ruffled Christmas Tree Skirt

Creating the Base

If don’t have an old tree skirt or tablecloth to use for the base, simply create your own! Purchase an affordable fabric and cut it into a 44″ x 44″ square. Then cut the fabric into a circle for the base. Start by folding the fabric in half, and then in half again. Next you will need to cut a curve along the NON-FOLDED corners. I used a compass to draw out the perfect curve before cutting. In the folded corner, cut a small curve for your center hole. Then unfold the circle and cut a slit from the outside edge to the center circle. The slit is for the Christmas tree. This trick can be used for cutting out any DIY tree skirt, not just a ruffled one!

Making the Ruffles

Once the base is prepped, it’s time to make your hands tired and crampy by cutting up your pretty fabric. Cut 3-4 inch strips, depending on how wide you want the ruffles to be. The length of your strips doesn’t really matter since your going to have overlapping pieces of fabric anyway. I found that shorter strips are easier to manage and easier to keep proportional when cutting.

Hot Glue Forever

Now for the fun, and long, part: hot glue! Start about 1.5 inches from the edge of your circle and put down a line of hot glue. I started my ruffles from the slit, since that part will be hidden behind the tree and may not be the prettiest part of the skirt. After you put down your hot glue, lay small sections of the fabric on top of the glue. Then pinch the fabric together to make the ruffles.

Hot Tip: Wear Gloves to Protect Your Finger Tips

You’ll notice that I’m wearing ridiculous hot pink winter gloves in these pictures. They are totally necessary for keeping your fingerprints. After doing half of my first strip my fingers were burnt to a crisp. Trying to make the ruffles and avoid the glue took WAY too long. So I put on some gloves and saved time and my fingers. You can get a pair of these gloves for $1 in the check-out line at JoAnn.

Keep gluing and gluing and gluing until you cover the whole skirt. This will take you a very long time and your knees and back will hurt when you are done, but it’s definitely worth it!

This skirt is such a fun touch for under my tree and it would even make a great gift for someone else, just make sure you really like them so you don’t give up halfway through.

More Christmas Craft Ideas

• Christmas card garland
• Fleece-tie Christmas tree skirt
• Glitter Ornaments
• Wedding Invitation Ornaments
• Chalkboard Ornaments