Area Advent Calendar - 6th December

We hope you are enjoying our Area Advent Calendar.  Today we have a Christmas craft idea from Vicki Hodgkiss.  Vicki is our Area Speaker's Rep and a member of Canterbury Flower Club.   Vicki has made this mini-Christmas tree from pine needles!  

She says:  Greetings to you all
"I have several Scots pines in my garden and had the mad idea to use their needles to make a mini Christmas tree. It does take a while but in Lockdown what a pleasant way to spend a few hours. You could of course use other conifers eg Lleylandii".

Details of what you need to make one and instructions are underneath the picture so keep scrolling down.

Don't forget to come back tomorrow to see another exciting design

Mini Pine Tree
What you need

1. A quantity of branches of conifer. It is a good idea to wash and dry them before use as they are dusty and full of little bugs
2. A 2 cm wide by approx 30cm long straight piece of pine branch for   the trunk or other branch or dowel.
3. Small flower pot or similar container. Mine is 6cm tall by 7 cm wide and I covered it in birch bark for a rustic look.
4. Polyfilla or similar.
5. Glue gun and glue sticks.
6. Decorations of your choice. ( I used mini lights and tiny sprayed pine cones that are at the ends of the needle clusters and are next years cones), and a wire and sequin star.
7. You can of course spray your tree and colour co-ordinate your decorations.

 
Method

1. Put the straight pine branch trunk or wood into your pot and fill pot with polyfilla or equivalent. Make sure it is straight. Leave to set.
2. Strip the pine needles from the conifer.
3. Half way up the pine branch trunk, start to glue the unpointed end of needles around the branch. Keep them close together and keep the natural curl of the needle curving upwards. Complete the circle.
4. Add another circle on top of the previous one
5. Carry on glueing circles just above the previous two. Add more needles if you spot a gap.
6. Carry on with single circles until you are about 1 cm from the top.
7. Now make a large bunch of needles for the tree top. Using fine wire bind them together to form a shuttlecock cone shape and glue onto the top.
8. Trim the needles at the base and any that are sticking out to make a good tree shape.
9. Decorate your tree with anything you like but keep in proportion with the size of your tree. Mine is only 40cm high.

 
GOOD LUCK
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