Stick Christmas tree ...

This isn't a new idea, I've seen a few different takes on Christmas trees made from sticks, but as it's so easy to do and it's also very cheap I thought I'd get in on the act, well why not ?

Here's my effort -

I'm thinking rustic.

As the title says, it's basically a Christmas tree made of sticks, in this case Buddleja, I've used eleven pieces in all, I usually keep any sticks I prune to make things out of, like frames and other things.

To make this one I used an off cut from my wood turning exploits, a piece of 6mm dowel (left over from another project) a bit of hot glue, and a small piece of copper wire and I made a star for it from some pewter sheet we got from freecycle ages ago, so the cost to make this is about 50 pence, that's taking into consideration the dowel and a couple of blobs of hot glue, everything else was free.


The base - 

It was a bit bigger than  I wanted, so I cut some off.

Next I drilled a hole into the centre, this is to hold the dowel, which I secured with a bit of hot glue.


The base with dowel fixed -

I used a 7mm drill bit for the hole.

The next step is to cut the lengths of stick that will make up the body of the tree, and this is as simple as it sounds, as I had a rough idea of what I wanted the tree to look like, I cut the stick out in pairs of equal length so that I could form the cross shapes, I started at 6 inches and decreased the length by 1 inch at a time.

Stick cut and the centres of each bit marked out for drilling -

It sort of looks like a Christmas tree already.

Next I drilled out a 7mm hole in the middle of each stick so that I could slide them onto the dowel, with the last bit of stick I only drilled into it half way, this is because it acts like a cap to stop the other bits being pulled off the tree, it also gave me some where to fix the star.

Sticks arranged on the dowel - 

Sort of tree like.

Once I had the sticks arranged in the right order I then marked the dowel so that I could cut of what I didn't need, I found it easier to do this way as I wasn't quite sure how tall it was going to end up.

Dowel marked ready for cutting - 

I marked it just above the last bit of stick.

And here it is with the last bit of stick in place - 

Now all it needs is a star.

I was going to leave it bare, but decided a small star for the top was needed, if I had left it bare the kids would have told me it was wrong and needed a star.

The star is just 2 bits of pewter sheet stuck onto a small bit of copper wire, the pewter we got from freecycle ages ago, and copper wire can be found in most electrical items, we get a lot of ours from dead electrical stuff, especially from transformers, which most things have, radios, pc power supplies etc.

Because the pewter is quite thin I was able to use one of those paper stamps, the ones that cut shapes out of paper to cut out the star, and then I just used a little glue to hold the two star shapes together with the wire in between them, to fix the star to the tree I just drilled a small hole in the top of the tree and pushed the wire into it.

The star - 

It does make the tree look better.

Not everyone will have a bit of pewter sheet lying about, so cardboard painted silver would be just as good, or a small bit of wood cut into a star shape, you could even use an old tin can to cut out the star shape, if I'm honest I didn't want to mess about with paints and such like, so I just went for the pewter as I knew it would be quicker, which is a bit lazy I know.

And here's the finished tree with it's new family - 

The newest member of my wife's tree collection.

I did fix each section of the tree into place with a bit of hot glue, but my wife said it might have been better to leave them, that way the kids could move it about and mess about organising the sticks into different patterns and such like, you could even make a game of it, it's actually a good and easy project for kids to try themselves, so why not have a go ?

Thanks for reading.

Mini sack for wine bottles ... ...

I have finally completed a present for a family member, you'd think it would have been quick to sort out a bottle of wine, but not in this house.
Apart from spending the best part of 6 months actually brewing the wine (which is blackberry) I have made a metal label to hang round it (yes I wrote a post about it) I also spent some time designing a paper labels for the front and back of the bottle, and lastly I have made a mini sack for it.

I used an off cut of red velvet left over from the christmas stockings my wife has made for our kids (here's the blog post she wrote about them ---> velvet christmas sacks (opens in new window)

Here's the finished article -

A mini santa sack :-)

It was easy to make, even for me with my limited sewing machine skills, I had a rectangle of fabric, which I made into a little bag by sewing up the sides, I also made a tube ? (not up on sewing terminology) for the ribbon to run through.

And that's about it, took me a while to do, but I was taking it easy so as not to mess it up, I did add some little star shaped sequins for a little decoration (sewed them on by hand)

It's a nice thing (I would say that, I made it) but it will serve as a reminder, like the metal label and it can be reused for something else, maybe a small stocking for next year ? or some other use, either way it will be around for a while, long after the wine has been drunk and the bottle recycled.

Yes but it's a lot of effort for a bottle of wine, why not just shove it in a box ? well yes I could have, but making a little extra effort will make it more special, it is after all a bottle of wine to be drunk, but that doesn't mean it doesn't deserve a little effort.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great christmas, and all the best for 2011.

Spinning star tree decoration ... ... (rough draft)

I just thought I'd write a quick post to carry on from the one I did about the spinning tree decoration.
This is more or less the same thing, only it's a star and instead of slicing it up I've cut out smaller star shapes, which spin within each other.

Here's a picture (it's a prototype)

Cardboard wasn't the best material to spray with paint.

Okay so it's not neat and tidy, but it'll do as a model to see if the idea works well, and also to work out the best way to make it. In this case something harder than cardboard will be better, especially if you intend to spray it silver or gold for example.

The problem was that the cardboard soaked up the paint and became very floppy, it's okay now it's dried but for a moment I thought it might fall apart.

Next time I'll use wood (maybe thin plywood) ;-)

It's easy to make, basically you find a shape, I used a star seeing as it's nearly christmas, but a circle or other shape would work just as well. You can see that it's a star within a star within a star, they all turn independently. 

You cut out the shape from your chosen material, then you draw a smaller shape inside it, and then another until you get to the middle, I left a fairly large shape in the middle, if I'd have used wood I could have gone smaller.

Now you want to remove some of the sections you've drawn so that there's a gap between each shape, like the picture below (which you can copy if you want to use a star, just print it out and use it as a template) I've marked parts in red, these are the parts you want to remove, you should be left with 3 sections.

Star template - 

You may want to make it smaller, or larger. Note the red sections.

You should get the idea from the template, once you've removed the red sections you can then assemble the decoration, I used a needle and thread to join the pieces, with beads separating each part so that they can spin without catching each other.

If you use wood you will need to use a drill bit to make the holes for the thread or wire if you prefer and what you should end up with is something like the first pictures (only some what neater) I will update this post with pictures of a wooden one if I get round to making it before christmas day ;-) if not have fun making your own ones, you can get the kids to decorate them with glitter and what ever else you feel like, have fun.

Thanks for reading.