Twiggy Christmas Trees in July!

I wish you a Merry Christmas in July!

Sing it with me!

I wish you a Merry Christmas in July!

Are you singing?

I wish you a Merry Christmas in July!

I can't hear youuuuu!

And a Happy New... um... cough...er... DAYYYY!!!...

Lovely. Very nice.

Let's make some trees, man.

Tutorial: Twiggy Christmas Trees

You will need:

• a few twigs
• handsaw
• drill with small bit
• ribbon
• scissors
• large needle
• sandpaper
• liquid acrylic paints (optional)

1. Using the handsaw, cut your twigs into progressively smaller pieces. No need to be exact. Trust yourself and just wing it. Also cut several stubby bead-like pieces for the branch spacers.

2. Place them as in Photo #2 to make sure they all look good together. Trim any pieces that may be too long.

3. With the drill, drill holes into the centers of the twigs. Try to find the center of balance of each piece before you drill to ensure that both sides are balanced. For the bottom-most trunk piece, drill a hole down into the heart of the piece.

4. Sand all the ends with fine sandpaper.

5. Cut a piece of ribbon that is 1-1/2 times the height of your tree. Thread the ribbon into your needle. Starting with the bottom trunk, thread the ribbon through all the tree pieces leaving a tail hanging out the bottom.

6. Back at the top, turn that needle around and head back down the top three pieces leaving a loop at the top.

7. Making sure you have a nice long loop at the top, pull the end of the ribbon out between the third and fourth pieces and tie a knot as in Photo #7. Trim the excess ribbon end at the knot.

8. Nudge all wooden pieces together, slipping the knot inside one of the pieces to hide it. Make a large knot at the bottom end. Trim the excess ribbon.

9. (Optional) If you're a fan of colour, beautify your trees with paint! Before assembling your tree (which starts at #5 by the way), paint all the twiggy pieces using liquid acrylic paints. I chose to go nuts with the stripes and polkadots but you can paint yours however you like. Get creative and make them one-of-a-kind spectacular!

See? Here's the pretty polkadotted one!

But you may like it "au naturel" if that's the sort of thing you go for...

Me?... I'll take one of each please!

Merry Christmas in July! So glad you could celebrate with me. Now have yourself a restful weekend!

Edited to Add: Visit Be Different Act Normal today! I have the distinct pleasure of guest-posting. Thanks so much for having me Lori!