Saturday, December 13, 2014

The Christmas tree he can undecorate!

I saw this idea on Pinterest a couple years ago: a felt tree with felt ornaments. Bear is pretty good with our real Christmas tree. He usually doesn't go near it if no one else is around it (because he doesn't like to be alone so he just always goes where people are), so his examinations of the tree are almost always under my supervision and usually pretty nonthreatening. But I thought it would be fun to have a hands-on version for him. He loves to swipe off all the felt ornaments, and finally succeeded in making one stick to the tree! He did it three times in a row! He has also made multiple attempts to stick felt ornaments to the REAL tree, which of course doesn't work and is adorable to watch.

Naturally Zuzu is also allowed to play with it, but it's a bit young for her. I'm having fun imagining ways that this tree could be adapted to work for multiple ages. Add buttons with ornaments that can be buttoned on, number the ornaments and make it an advent tree, make a felt nativity, make felt ornaments together as a craft ...

The site where I got the idea uses a cone shape for the tree. I used 5 flat panels instead. I cut triangles out of thick cardboard and duct-taped them together. I stuffed the inside with paper, then taped on a cardboard base. Then I cut the tree shapes out of a huge sheet of green felt. There is enough felt at the bottom of each tree panel to fold under the bottom a couple inches. I sewed all the tree edges together and slid it over the cardboard. I glued the felt to the bottom.

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