Toddler Play Felt Tree Craft

Are you looking for a solution to the Toddler Kills the Tree™ syndrome? Welcome guest contributor Kristin, mother to five, who has a really smart and cute idea she implemented in her home I just had to have her share with you!

I love Christmas. Like, really really love it. As in, I’m-looking-for-Christmas-things-on-Pinterest-in-July kind-of love it. The only thing I am concerned with buying on Black Friday is a big, beautiful, real Christmas tree, and by golly we got one! It’s seven feet tall, and super full, and smells absolutely amazing, but my two toddlers just will. not. leave. the. dang. thing. alone. I guess the glow of the lights and the shiny ornaments is too big of a pull for them. I understand. It pulls me in, too, but I was getting pretty tired of re-decorating the tree every few hours because they had take so many ornaments off.

So yesterday after school, I dropped the oldest off at his OT appointment and then I headed to straight to JoAnn’s. Last year I had seen this post on Pinterest where a mom had made a felt tree to go on the wall for her toddler and I decided I needed my own version, STAT. I had the ladies in the store cut me a yard of green felt (which ended up being WAY more than I needed, I probably could have got away with half since the bolts of felt are so wide, but it’ll get used for other Christmas crafts), and then about 10 sheets of felt in other colors (I used two sheets each of white, brown, red, yellow, and blue). I also got a pack of velcro dots that are made specifically for hanging things on the wall to attach the tree to the wall. After using some coupons on their app, I walked out of there with all this material for under ten bucks. Score!

The tree itself is just a big triangle. Mine is about 26 inches wide and 36 inches high. For the ornaments, I used a sharpie to draw out simple shapes onto the felt so my older children, ages 5, 7, and 8, could cut them out. We ended up having a star, several circles, some circular that come to a point at the bottom (since we have similar shaped ornaments on the big tree), a couple angels, some candy cane shapes, light bulb shapes, and a couple gingerbread people cut from a sheet of brown.

Felt sticks to itself, so there was no need to add anything sticky or grippy to the ornaments to get them to stick to the felt tree. All five of the kids love having a tree of their own that they can decorate and un-decorate to their hearts content. I also love that, when the 1 and 2 year old start to reach out for the ornaments on the real tree, I have somewhere to redirect them towards. Win-win!

What do you think, friends? I love how Kristin got all her children involved, problem solving her way out of this toddler tree issue. Are you totally making a bee-line for the store to get some felt now like me? You can follow Kristin on Pinterest or Instagram!