DIY feather Christmas tree

Since it's so close to the holidays I decided to make some decorations with all these feathers I have laying around! I pick chicken feathers up off the ground all the time, especially during fall molt. Obviously Christmas trees are a popular decoration this time of year and what better way to bring my love for chickens indoors than to make feather trees from chicken and guinea fowl feathers?

These are super easy to make and they took about 20 minutes to make 2 of them. I bought the Styrofoam cones at the dollar store so they only had one size, but the craft store had several different sizes available. They are slightly more expensive at craft stores but using dollar store items brought the total cost for this craft to $3 for 2 trees.

Feather Christmas tree craft

I promise this won't be difficult! You're pretty much just going to glue feathers to a foam form. The great thing about feathers is that they can hide a myriad of mistakes, so excellent crafting skills are not necessary for these to turn out well! We can all admit my crafting skills are not top notch, but I still think they turned out good! I'm sure you can do even better! Let's get started....

Supplies you'll need:

Styrofoam cone
Feathers
Hot glue gun & glue sticks

Separate the feathers into piles of long and short feathers. Chicken body feathers will work better for this craft than flight feathers which are rigid and not at all fluffy. 

Feathers have a natural curve to them. Before starting to glue feathers to the cone decide how you want your feathers to lay. I like the curl to go up and away from the cone since it resembles evergreen tree branches better, so that is the way I positioned mine.

You'll start with the long feathers. Starting at the bottom of the styrofoam cone (wide end) put a small vertical line of hot glue about 2" from the base, then press the feather spine down onto it. Let a little bit of feather hang over the end of the cone but not so much that the cone can't stand up. Glue feathers around the cone, slightly overlapping them.

Start a second ring of feathers about an inch above the first one. Glue these feathers above but between the feathers of the first ring so they are staggered, not directly in line with each other. This gives the tree a fuller more covered look. Continue gluing feathers in layers till you get to the top of the cone.

To top your tree with feathers you'll need to glue some feathers so they're standing straight up. Taking a closed pair of scissors or a sharpened pencil, press down into the center of the cone about 1/4". Remove scissors and add a drop of hot glue. Stick feathers into the glue filled hole quill end down. Decorate the very top of the cone with small feathers to cover the exposed feather quills.

Using the small feathers, go around the cone and fill in any bare spots where the cone is visible. You want the tree to be pretty full. Go around the tree and make sure none of the quills are sticking out, the slight bend in them sometimes keeps them from laying flat. Trim the very ends with scissors if they're sticking out. Display your feather trees with your other Christmas decorations.

If you don't have enough feathers

Now you may be wondering just why I have so many white feathers on my trees when all the chickens in my blog pictures are different colors? They sell those at the fabric store. *sigh* You see, I have a bad cat. Yesterday when I was setting up to make this craft I put everything out on the table in my craft room: 2 boxes full of feathers and all the project supplies. Then I went into the other room to do something and forgot to shut the door.

I'm pretty sure Trixie started it, but I know the other cat helped her. Apparently they decided to eat, roll on, and destroy the entire box of carefully saved feathers! All I had left were colorful dyed guinea fowl feathers in a smaller box they couldn't get into, and a small container of feathers in the garage that I had collected recently. 

I had to buy the white feathers to get this craft done in time for Christmas! (Just look at her in that picture! Even after killing a whole box of feathers she wants the replacements. Bad cat!) 

So the moral of the story is, if you don't have enough chicken feathers you can buy them at the craft store to fill in your feather trees or other feather crafts! They also had lots of different colors, so you could tie in with your holiday color scheme if that's your thing.

These homemade feather trees make great decorations, or gifts and making them yourself certainly beats paying $41 online for one! 

If you have feather stalking cats and end up with only a few feathers left and don't feel like running to the store, you can make these elegant single feather ornaments  for your Christmas tree, or just anywhere. Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!

Want more ideas for using feathers? Check out my other chicken craft tutorials.

~L

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