home-made eco christmas tree tutorial.

I have finally managed to finish the tree.  It has taken a while as its construction time has been broken up with taking the girls to the pool, christmas shopping, and possibly other stuff that I can't remember. It is bamboo and has taken on many aspects of images searched over the internet in previous post.  I possibly would have made it like this anyway, but it is hard to say.

 (above) working it out as I go along, and attractive shots of the garage floor, which is actually visible now it has had a tidy up.  I will attempt to write down the process in a coherent manner, if you don't understand it let me know and I will try to remedy this.

Construction:

1. cut bamboo pole for central trunk.  (I got my husband to cut them using a circular saw as bamboo will split if I use my sectres or loppers)

2.   cut lateral branches, work out width of bottom of tree and top of tree and graduate lengths of branches inbetween.  I used 30 laterals (see picture below)

3.  I measured out evenly 30 holes on the trunk of tree, working from between where the top branch and the bottom branch begin.  I placed each hole slightly around the trunk from the previous one so that the branches are well dispersed. Drill through from one side to the other.

4.  drill 2 holes side by side on the centre of each lateral branch.(the distance between the holes is relative to how thick the central trunk is 

(above) bit more like it.  My 9 year old was decidedly unimpressed at this point, and who could blame her?  My 12 year old said "You could just be normal" (she is nearly a teenager)

5.  Using wire, push length about 20cms/4.5inches through trunk holes and then each end through each hole in lateral branch and wrap around branch.  Start at bottom and work way up to top branch.  

 Hooray!  I ran out of wire last night, which was a good thing as the wire we had was a bit thick and hard to bend around.  New wire was quick and easy, my husband drilled a large hole in a macrocarpa sleeper to stand the tree in.  

 It's mimimalist appearance actually worked quite well with our colourful over the top decorations.  The paper chinese lanterns were an experiment by Nine Year Old and at first looked a bit dodge, but I think they work well now it's all finished.

 Its like an explosian went through the pink sparkley decoration department.  I like it.

Need something a bit bigger and shinier for the top of the tree, but that can soon be remedied.