Making A Life

 With three guys in the house the testosterone over flows. Much to my surprise the Christmas tree is male too.   I was told by my four year old that “the tree is a boy, and boys don’t wear skirts”.   Of course I learned that the tree was a boy only after I made it a skirt.  So the compromise, a train tree skirt. For the times that I have put up a tree in the last 18 years, the skirt was missing. Sometimes I put a towel, or piece of random fabric draped around the base of the tree. I just filled the bottom with presents and who knew what was hiding underneath. But this year I committed to “finishing” the tree. I was out shopping, and I saw a beautiful tree skirt (with a train on it) for $100.00, and thought hey I can make something like this. My go to for “floor” fabrics are canvas painting drop cloths available at most hardware stores for what amounts to a couple of dollars a yard for heavy-duty fabric. A trip to Michael’s for ribbon, and felt and I was ready to craft.  I edged the skirt with ribbon, cut out the train shapes and cargo out of felt, and using coloured embroidery floss sewed the train cars, ribbon/button embellishments and button wheels to the fabric base. It is a hit was Sasha who insisted on making a paper train to match.