Christmas Tree Cushion from old clothes

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The First Challenge in our 12 Days of DIY Christmas Challenges is to make a Christmas ornament or decoration from an item of clothing you no longer wear.

I chose this pair of green trousers.

First I cut along the centre leg seam to open them out and see how much fabric I had to work with.

From here - it's easy to make a simple shaped cushion of your choice. Here's how.

Get some scrap paper that's as big as the fabric you have. I taped together a few pieces! Draw your design and cut out. Make it nice and bold - small pieces are more fiddly to sew. Keep it simple!

Now you need to place your template on the fabric to cut out.  I folded my fabric in half, right sides together, then pinned the template to the double layer of fabric. This meant I only had to cut once.  Or you can just pin and cut twice to get your two pieces.

Once you have your two pieces of fabric cut to your template. Place them right sides together then pin around all the edges.

Stitch all the way around, leaving a gap of around 10 cm (4") to turn it out at the end.

I used the triple stitch setting on my machine to add a little extra strength to the seams as I wanted the cushion to be stuffed quite firm.

Once you've stitched around the edges, turn your pillow right sides out.

Now it's time to stuff it.  I had an old pillow that I'd kept to reuse the stuffing.  

After a pillow or cushion has gone lumpy, the stuffing can be reused if you take a little time to pull it apart and fluff it up again.

Once your pillow is stuffed as firm as you'd like it, hand stitch your opening closed.

And there you have a super simple Christmas Tree Cushion from an old pair of pants and an old pillow.

I would say that if I were to make another of these, I would draw the pointy branches at each side of the tree a little fatter - my family kindly pointed out that it does look a little like an alien tree!! 
I like to say it's a Christmas Tree with Character!! :)

All the left over scraps from the pants, I cut up small and added to the pillow stuffing! So there was no waste at all!

I'm much happier with my tree cushion than I was with my old green pants that I hadn't worn in a long time!

For the free downloadable PDF version of this tutorial, click here. 

What old clothes do you have that you no longer wear, but could be turned into a Christmas Ornament or Decoration?

Go on - take a look in your wardrobe and see!

For more ideas on making Christmas decorations from old clothing and to see the video setting this challenge - check out this post here, and do add your own projects to the link up there too!

Stay tuned for more Christmas DIY Challenges.

The videos setting the challenges are being posted each day on social media. You can find them on my Facebook page.

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Each day a challenge will be set by means of a video and blog posts giving some suggested ideas and crafts. These posts will also contain a linky party for anyone and everyone who wants to join in to link up their projects - both past and present, that answer the challenge.  The linky party can be found on all our blogs and we'll try and come up with different ideas and tutorials for the challenges too. So please to visit us all, and then share your ideas with us as well! We're looking forward to seeing how these challenge are met!

Ready, Steady....Let's Christmas Craft!


The 12 Days of Christmas DIY Challenges is brought to you by

Jill @ Creating my way to Success
Vicky @ Vicky Myers Creations
Anna @ Tea and a Sewing Machine
Pam @ Threading My Way
Anne @ Domesblissity