Christmas tree fabric panel - making the most of space and storage!

It's Christmas time again and that means the joy of a Christmas tree - the item we store (if you use a plastic one) somewhere in the back of the garage or shed or stuffed into a closet. It's usually a bit of a job and it's dusty and has to be straightened and fussed with and that is all before you even get close to thinking about decorations. So far we have 6.5 kids and it might be a job to us but to them it's a special time of memories, problem is for us is we don't have a lot of space in the lounge room and we don't have any storage space the rest of the year so hubby and I began to think of a way we could do this years tree a little different - first we came across the wall sticker trees......a great concept but eventually they just aren't going to stick and even rolled up it would be a larger item to store and it was trawling ebay that I found the best thing yet - A fabric panel of a Christmas tree. How easy was that and it was even decorated quite beautifully!

 This is the original panel - if you wanted you could even use it as is..........I lined it with a back fabric to make it neat and durable, even washable! The panel cost me $20 but I'm sure you could find one cheaper too.

BUT that wouldn't be very fun for our kids so when I came across a fabric panel of Christmas decorations I was more than pleased - I could sew on velcro/aplix dots to the tree and make up the decorations with dots on their backs as well so the kids could still put decorations on the tree......... I hand sewed them on after I had finished backing and sewing the actual tree panel. At the top of the panel I sewed on a fabric loop so along the top a piece of dowel or a stick could be inserted across making the tree panel sit flat - when it's time to store it away we'll just throw the stick outside and choose another off the ground for next year.

Here is a close up of the decorations - A simple cut out and sew the two sides together affair. I needed 3 more than what the panel had so I also sewed up some felt baubles. You could design and sew all the decorations if you wanted instead of buying a pre-printed panel but I was on a tight time schedule this year......I do plan to add to the tree as the years go by though :)

You could even attach things around the tree - wherever you like really.

The kids had great fun choosing and sticking them on the panel and best of all it is also interactive as they can re-position them if they feel like having a fiddle ;)
Not the best overall pic but doesn't it look great finished and now the presents can stack neatly against the wall too...............................No small pieces for toddlers and babies to chew or choke on and the cats cannot climb all over it sending everything crashing to the floor. (Last year I think our tree fell over no less than 5 times due to children or cats LOL )
Best of all when all is finished it just folds neatly into a small square ready to store in a drawer!!!!!!