Denim Christmas Trees – Festive Upcycle Project

It was only a matter of time before I made denim Christmas trees.

After all, I’ve made denim pumpkins, denim cord holders, a denim turkey, denim bunting, denim pennants, denim hanging loops for towels, and a denim 4th of July wreath.

I’m the Bubba Gump Shrimp of denim projects.

You’d think I’d have run out of denim to repurpose for crafts but, between you and me, one pair of my husband’s jeans goes a long way.

Now it’s your turn to make denim Christmas trees and today I’m going to show you how.

Please note that I love a versatile craft and you can make these denim Christmas trees with any denim of your choice. You don’t have to use your husband’s. You can also use any cone as your base. I used a safety cone because they are nice and tall size-wise, but you could use a cardboard cone, paper-mâché, etc.

This is a “choose your own adventure” of festive crafts.

What You’ll Need To Make Denim Christmas Trees

cone of some sort (mine are 15-inch and came in this 5-pack on Amazon)
scrap denim – enough to cover your cone
glue – I used a glue stick, but most any glue will work
stencil of your choosing
paint brush
paint
scissors
pencil eraser (optional) to use as a stamp
yarn (optional) to make a topper
optional – candlestick to use as a tree base

How To Make A Denim Christmas Tree

Step 1: Cover your cone in denim.

Please note that if you are using a safety cone or traffic cone to make your denim Christmas tree, you’ll want to cut off the flat part that sits on the ground so that only the cone is left. You should be able to use heavy duty scissors or a utility knife to do this.

I’m not sure if there is an ideal way to cover your cone in denim. If there is, I’m sure one of you clever people will let me know!

I used the pant leg so that the bottom of the tree had a finished hem.

I cut the pant leg along the two vertical seams so that I had two rectangles a little taller than the height of the cone. I secured the first rectangle to the cone with a glue stick. Any glue should work, but keep in mind that hot glue might make ridges that will be visible.

I trimmed off the excess, which left a small triangle uncovered on the cone. I cut to size a piece to fit out of the second denim rectangle and glued it to the cone.

If you look at the below picture, you’ll see the top of my cone is flat. That’s because I cut the top off. Nothing is sacred around here.

However, this cut allowed me to tuck my denim inside the cone at the top and gave me space to add a tree topper. If you don’t cut the top off, you’ll just have to trim and glue your denim in place in a way that looks finished to you.

Step 2: Decorate your denim Christmas tree.

Now that your cone is covered in denim, it is time to decorate!

I chose to paint a design on my denim, but there are so many things you could do to personalize these trees, including using the pocket of the jeans on the tree or adding embellishments.

I was going to use fabric paint to decorate my tree, but that was going to require two coats of paint. No one has time for that. I ended up using regular latex house paint. Acrylic craft paint should work great too.

I used a paper doily as a stencil for one of the trees because I don’t own actual stencils. Ha!

I stamped the paint on the other tree using two different-sized pencil erasers because I don’t own actual stamps either.

Where there is a will, there is a way.

Step 3: Make a topper for your denim Christmas tree.

Depending on what type of cone you use for the structure of your tree, you may or may not need a tree topper.

My trees did need one to finish them off.

I chose to make my tree topper out of a yarn pom-pom. If you’ve never made a yarn pom-pom, a quick Google search will give you approximately 137,295 tutorials.

Other topper ideas could be a small ornament, angel, or snowflake.

If you do use safety cones to make your Christmas trees, you can also drill holes into the cone so that you can light them up! In the above picture you can see the little holes I made to experiment with this idea.

Keep in mind that safety cones come in a variety of colors. Whatever color the cone is made out of is what will reflect when lit up. I didn’t even think about this until I put a small light inside the purple cone!

Purple isn’t a traditional Christmas color, but I didn’t hate it.

I love repurposing items that I already own into festive decor. This is a craft that doesn’t take itself too seriously and there’s creative freedom in that sort of fun!

Plus, if I want to reuse these cones for another Christmas tree idea in the future (there will be one), it will be easy enough to remove the denim and start fresh.

What do you think of my denim Christmas trees? Do they give you ideas on how you can repurpose and refashion things around your house? Let me know. Please leave a comment on this blog post, email us here, or reach out via Instagram or Facebook.

Happy holiday crafting!

Thanks for hanging out with me today. If you want to see other ways I’ve used repurposed items to make Christmas decor, check these out.

Copper Christmas Tree (another safety cone craft)

Piano Hammer Christmas Tree (music lovers will sing the praises of this one)

Leather Christmas Trees (it’s not as weird as you’re imaging)

Piano Pedal Tree Topper (it is as weird as you are imagining)

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