Buttons & Braids Christmas Trees

Take the Stuffed Out of Shirts

This is a great way to reinvent a favorite dress shirt, t-shirt, pair of pajamas, or in my case all three. Simply tear the shirt fabric into two inch strips and braid them together. There's nothing neat and tidy about this. You just need to knot the scraps of fabric together as you braid them. Don't trim any of the ends. The haphazardness of the braid is part of the charm. When you've finished braiding, hot glue the braid to a cardboard cone available in various sizes at your local craft store. I spiraled the braid, from top to bottom glueing as I went, on the tree to the left pictured above, and on the tree to the right I glued the braid on the bottom vertically. I cut the braid as I attached each one with hot glue to minimize the unravelling of the braid. When I finished glueing the braid, I glued pearl and white buttons of various sizes on the top of the cone. I used recycled jelly jars and jars filled with vintage buttons for the bases.