make your own vintage feather christmas tree

Saturday, 13 November 2010

I'm totally in love with vintage feather trees, but they are hard to find and/or cost a fortune. So why not make your own? Here's how.


Grab yourself a crappy old marked-down miniature tree from Big W. Unfold all the branches until they sit at a 45 degree angle to the trunk. Notice how crappy and wonky it looks. But not for long!


Make yourself a cup of tea. Take a pair of pliers and trim the bottom branches at least 10cm up the trunk, more if you want a more elegant look and if the tree is tall enough.

Take care not to take too many fronds, work slowly and keep fanning out the branches to see how you're going. Leave at least 10cm between each level, if not more. Each level of branches should have no more than 8 branches - 8 at the bottom and only 3 or 4 at the top.


When you're done, if your tree's trunk is a bit bushy, give it a nice little trim with scissors. Make sure you cover your cup of tea otherwise you'll be sipping on little plastic shards - they pop everywhere.

Et voilà! Your gorgeous feather tree. How cute? I've added little bells on ribbon to show you how well the decorations stand out on such a tree but I'll be decorating this tree with dark gingerbread cookies closer to Christmas, iced in bright white.

If you like, you can make a cone out of cardboard to cover the tree's stand, or you could take off the legs and 'plant' the tree in a lovely pot, deep bowl or vase.


 Don't you just love Christmas?

4 comments:

Brenda said...

Such a great idea Tania! It's so pretty after it's makeover and perfect for a table top or small spaces. Thanks for sharing!

posie blogs Jennie McClelland said...

Beautiful, so sweet & pretty, ahhhh, love it, love Posie

Tania McCartney said...

Thanks gals, I'll post another pic when it's decorated with gingerbread!

A Spoonful Of Sugar said...

Looks gorgeous and would make a lovely centrepiece for the Christmas table. Can't wait to see it with gingerbread cookies.

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