Christmas in July - Fingerprint Tree Skirt - Week Five

Kerry Hammond is here to wrap up the final week of Christmas in July, featuring our final craft of the month: The Fingerprint Tree Skirt.

We were lucky that there were five Thursdays in July this year. It meant that we were able to create our Christmas in July Crime Scene Christmas Tree with four creative ornaments and a tree skirt. Allow me to recap: Week One showed us how to make The Suspect Ornaments (I secretly think he looks like the Monopoly man). Week Two brought us Crime Scene Ornaments, where we showed you that black ball ornaments really are festive. In Week Three we added some blood spatter to our tree with Bloody Spatter Ornaments. In Week Four we used pieces from the board game Clue to create truly unique Clue Ornaments. And finally, in Week Four, we have the finishing touch – the Fingerprint Tree Skirt.

This craft is really pretty easy to make, assuming you can use a sewing machine. I didn’t use any batting inside my skirt, nor did I add ribbon to the outside edge, but both of these are options and would add an extra flair to your tree skirt. My skirt is made from fingerprint fabric purchased at fabric.com, but you can use any print you like. I think the blood spatter fabric that we used for the Mystery Playground Table Runner would also look great.

Materials:

• Top Fabric in any print
• Bottom fabric in solid color
• Sewing machine
• Measuring tape
• Scissors
• Pins
• Sharpie Marker
• String
• Small bowl
• Straight edge

Step One: Measure & Draw Your Outer Circle
The size of your skirt will depend on the size of your tree. Mine was 27” in diameter, so I needed less than a yard of fabric. Place your top fabric and your bottom fabric together, right side to right side. Tie a piece of string to a Sharpie marker and cut the length equal to the radius of your tree skirt. My skirt was 27” in diameter, so my string was about 13.5” long.

Hold the end of your string in the center of your fabric and spin the Sharpie around and draw a circle, much like the compass you used in grade school.

Step Two: Measure & Draw Your Inner Circle
Find a small bowl, mine was about 4 inches in diameter. Place it in the center of your large Circle and trace around it with your Sharpie.

Step Three: Draw Lines Connecting Two Circles
Using a straight edge, draw two lines that connect your inner and outer circles. This will be the slit in the side of your skirt that allows you to wrap it around your tree base.

Step Four: Sew
If needed, pin back and front together. Starting at the outer circle, right where your straight line hits it, sew directly on your Sharpie line. Go around the outer circle, up the first straight line to the inner circle, around the inner circle, and down the second straight edge. Leave about 3 inches unsewn between the start point and the end point. This will allow you to turn the skirt right side out.

Step Five: Turn Skirt Right Side Out
Using the gap you left, pull the skirt through the gap so that the rights sides show. 

Step Six: Sew Gap Closed
Fold edges under and sew the gap closed on the outside.

Step Seven: Finish Decorating Tree
Embellish any way you like. I used Crime Scene tape as garland and decorated the tree with each ornament we made this month. I even used a string of white lights.

Happy Christmas in July from Mystery Playground.