How To Make A Hanging Twig Tree For Christmas

Make your own inexpensive Scandi-style decorations quickly and easily

Scandi-style Christmas decorations are really trendy at the moment and are quite expensive to buy on the high street;many of them are so easy to make yourself from bits and pieces foraged from the garden or a walk in the countryside or along the beach. A 2D Christmas tree made from twigs is so easy and needs very little decoration. It can be hung on the wall or in a window or just left standing against the wall. If can be used as a card holder, by attaching the cards with mini pegs or just pinning them to the twigs.

You will need:

2 long pieces of twig
6 smaller pieces of twig; graduated in length
glue gun and glue sticks
raffia or rustic string
battery operated mini LED lights
decorations
florists spray paint (optional)

First of all assemble all your bits and pieces on a fairly large flat surface. Take the two large pieces and form them into a cone shape and secure at the top with some glue. Then take the smaller twigs and starting with the longest at the bottom, space them evenly up the tree. Secure all the joints with a dab of glue. Once the glue has set bind the joints with raffia, string, coloured wool or metallic string to hide the glue and add to the decoration. Make a loop at the top if you are going to hang up the tree.

If you want to make a larger or smaller tree just adjust the size of the two large side pieces and the number of cross branches. Don't forget if you are making this project with children use cold glue as both the hot glue and the gun can cause serious burns. You can always spray the stems with a metallic florists spray or use the lovely red stems of the Cornus (Dogwood).

Wind the lights around the tree, either just up the two sides or up the sides and along each branch. Start at the bottom corner where it is easier to hide the battery pack. This can be hidden by your decorations, a large bow or if it is free-standing a cluster of baubles or candles.

You can just leave the tree decorated with the raffia and add a simple ornament to hide the battery pack or decorate with home-made decorations, such as dried citrus slices, or sprigs of fresh greenery. If you have some mini baubles left over after decorating the tree, some colourful buttons or hand-made saltdough decorations these can all be used to decorate your tree.