How To Make a Christmas Tree Mannequin

If you were around the interwebs leading up to Christmas, you probably saw the mannequins-turned-christmas-tree. Here’s one example. 

When a friend shared this with me, I was quite excited to try it out myself, but all of the how-to’s I found had elaborate steps with obscure materials I didn’t have the time or know-how for. This is how I went about creating my own, just so you all have another option. Whatever you have to work with, I bet you can figure it out with a little persistence and creativity 🙂

 

My Main Supplies

• Dress Form
• Old Christmas Tree
• Dress Top & Tree Decor

I saved the Dress Form from the junkyard, got an old tree from new friends, and got the top & decor by thrift shopping. Hopefully you’ll find everything as easily as I did, but in case you need help with the dress form and have some money to spare, you can always buy one here: http://www.mannequinmadness.com/collections/dress-forms

 

Step 1, detach the tree branches. 

I was lucky enough to be given an old tree with hooked branches. Like so:

 

The branches were attached to the tree, not just hooked on, but thankfully I had a boyfriend handyman who used a drill to detach it.

See that wire fake-tree garland wrapped around the middle bar? That’s important! I saved that too.

 

Step 2: Get that fake-tree garland off the bar

This part wasn’t supposed to be difficult. It certainly wasn’t supposed to be tedious. Just untwist it, right? Wrong. Ya know how they keep it all on there? Hair. Okay, maybe that’s not really what it is, but just look at it. Appearance and texture of hair.

After much cutting, detangling, unknotting, and unwrapping of all this hair, I would be blessed with some tiny fluff branches (also important) and the garland.

This is the approximate ratio of hair-to-branch:

 

Step 3: Compile the tree-skirt

This is the main work.

• (Have top on the dress form already, so that it will be “tucked in” to the tree-skirt.)
• Wrap the garlands around the dress form, and twist tight for hold. One garland should be at about waist level, the other at about hip level.
• Hook the branches, first at hip level, then at waist level, varying branch length at random.
• Hide excess gaps with the little fluff branches as needed.

 

At this point my tree looked something like this:

 

Step 4: Decorate

Then it’s just the final touches. Fluffing out branches that lie flat, or pushing down branches that jut out weird. Adding ornaments or ribbon or accessories to give it some final flare. Making the tree look something like this. Isn’t she a beaut?