DIY Rustic Paper Bag Tree Skirt

DIY Rustic Paper Bag Tree Skirt

If you follow along regularly, then you know that this year I changed up the theme in my family room. In previous years, it has been a traditional, woodland theme with lots of browns, reds and greens. I wanted to keep the rustic and traditional appeal, but aim at keeping it more neutral. I didn’t want it to feel overwhelming and I wanted to be able to incorporate some coastal decor without it looking awkward.

I had to buy a new tree and lots of new ornaments and it still isn’t complete. I just don’t have the budget to buy everything all at once. Of course, one expense that I wanted to wait on until clearance time after the holidays was a skirt. I would love to have one of the bucket style skirts, but I felt it looked bare under the tree in the meantime.

I decided to make this paper bag skirt because it seemed simple enough and I already had the supplies to do it. You could also get very creative with this look and make a paper bag skirt. That might be cute and I toyed with that idea. I decided to go with this look since it’s likely that I will be tossing it once Christmas is over.

We shall see!

What you will need is:

  • paper lawn bags (Walmart ones are only $1.97)
  • Elmer’s wood glue (trees are made from wood, right?)
  • scissors
  • measuring tape
  • stickyback velcro

Measure your tree stand from a few inches away from the base of the tree to a few inches beyond the end of the stand. I decided to make mine around 10 inches long.

Start cutting up your bag by trimming along the folded edge of the sides ( the one tucked inside).

It should look something like this once you’ve cut all the way towards the bottom of the bag.

Measure the distance from leg to leg at the top and at the bottom of the legs. Add two inches to accommodate for overlapping. Mine wound up being 18 inches at the bottom and 7 inches at the top.

Measure out the longest length on one side of the paper bag, then cut it out straight across to the other side.

Then, keep your measuring tape out 18 inches on one side and mark where the half way point is (9 inches). At this point, you are going to measure for your shorter end, which was 7 inches. Now, put your measuring tape at 7 inches and put the center of that (3.5″) right on that mark we made for the 9 inch mark. This is to center everything up. Mark the ends of the width as well (0 inches and 7 inches).

Draw a line connecting the 0 inch mark of the short side to the corner of the long side. Do the same from the 7 inch mark to the other corner then cut along those lines.

You will wind up with a piece like this. Cut a total of 4 out.

Run a strip of glue along the front edge of one piece (about an inch wide strip) and lay another piece on top of this one, front sides together.

Allow time for the glue to dry thoroughly. I left mine until the next day. Once it has dried, fold over the top piece and press along the adhered spot. It will look like this.

Now you will have two of these. Lay them together, front sides together and glue one end together like you did above. On the other side, add peel and stick velcro. Flip it right-side out and…

All is done!!

IMG_1555

I want to note that this came out taller than I had planned for. If you want it to lay down more, add several more inches to your longer length on the bottom of the feet. I might re-do this and share those dimensions as well. I also bought some cute wooden snowflakes from the Target Dollar Spot (aka Bullseye’s Playground) that are raw and are beautiful on it.