DIY Christmas Tree

Since living in Africa, I had to say good-bye to beautiful green fir or spruce christmas trees.
I don't really like artificial trees, so every year it is again a challenge to find something that could work.
We had the fruit stands of the aloe cactus as a christmas tree, we had a tree bent out of wire, we had a cardboard tree and the shape of a tree put on the wall with tape.

So this year we will have a wooden tree.

The idea for that comes from Wood and Wool.
I love the stuff Ingrid makes, but she sits in the Netherlands and I don't think a tree would make it over here in time.

So I improvised and scraped together every old plank I could find in the cellar.

The tree will also come in very handy as an advent calendar.
Being half german, my daughter insist on getting her calendar every year. Like with the tree we had a lot of different varieties already.

This year I will turn the tree into a calendar and will (hopefully, if I can think of what to do by then :-) ) show it to you next weekend.

But here now for the self-made Christmas tree tutorial:


You will need:

Wood glue
A drill and drill bit
Wood screws
old planks
a saw
a screw driver

Start by cutting the planks into different lengths. Then put some wood glue on the middle of the shortest plank:

Drill a hole through both planks (but don't drill all the way through the one at the bottom):

Screw the two planks together:

Now continue like this with the other planks:

Turn it over, and there you have your tree:

I would have loved to hang the tree and it can easily be done by adding a screw at the back of the middle plank, but our walls are made of clay and cow dung and don't hold anything remotely heavy.
The tree didn't look very secure standing like this (my biggest dog likes to sleep under the table and sometimes lifts it when he gets up) so I decided to make a stand out of an old can and some wet soil.
It didn't look too pretty but luckily I had duct tape (isn't that just the greatest invention ever! The stuff has about a trillion uses), and I beautified it:

So here is the tree for now. Next week I will show you the advent calendar version, and after that the magical transformation into a christmas tree. Have a wonderful rest of the weekend!

I couldn't resist to try out some decorations. By now it is actually too dark to take pictures, so here just two to give you an idea:

I am linking this post to the blogs on my link party page


  

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