How To Decorate A Hanging Twig Tree For Christmas

Make your own Scandi style alternative Christmas decoration

Rustic, Scandi style Christmas decorations are right on trend at the moment and so expensive to buy on the high street. They are really easy to make yourself from bits and pieces you can find in the garden or on a walk in the countryside. If you live on the coast driftwood makes absolutely fantastic alternative Christmas trees. This minimalist tree can be hung up or stood against the wall; you can decorate it to be used as a contemporary tree or leave plain for hanging Christmas cards, just use small pegs or tie them on with narrow ribbon or metallic thread.

You need two long pieces of branch, in the video Nik has used the prunings from a buddleia, and six shorter pieces, graduated in length. The coloured stems of Cornus (dogwood) also look fantastic, being red, orange or white they already bring colour to your decoration and if you want minimalism then you can get away with not adding much in the way of additional decoration. This is for a tree approximately 1m (16”) in height so the amount of pieces will need to be adjusted according to the size of tree you are making. Attach the two long pieces with glue at one end to form a triangle. We used a hot glue gun but if you are doing this project with children use cold glue as both the hot glue and the gun can give you severe burns.

Once the glue has set attach the longer piece of twig to the bottom then all the other pieces evenly up the tree. You can bind the joints with raffia, rustic twine, wool or metallic thread to cover up the glue. Now you have the framework you can start to decorate or if you are using it as a card tree just place some decoration in one corner and you are finished. In the video Nik has wound some battery powered LED lights around the frame then decorated with pieces of dried orange slices, cones, teasels and some ribbon. You can spray the dried cones and seed heads with a metallic paint or a weak solution of PVA glue and glitter. Christmas berries wound around the twigs or buttons, sequins, sprigs of fresh berries, small baubles or whatever you have to hand stuck on look really effective and so easy to do and give you a gorgeous decoration.