The 12 Crafts of Christmas – No 1: The tree

After my recent weekend at Kirstie Allsopp's Handmade Christmas Fair in Manchester, I am well and truly in the festive spirit! My gift to you comes a little early this year – over the next few weeks I'll be sharing 12 Christmas crafts to inspire you to pick up a paint brush and get crafting over the holidays. When I say 'crafting', I mean 'making' – generally speaking I like crafts to be gutsy and bold!

Today, I'm sharing the first of my 12 crafts of Christmas, and where better to start than the tree?

This tree is really very simple to make and is a perfect option if you don't have much space in your house. You can decorate this tree in just the same way that you would decorate a traditional Christmas tree too – adorn it with fairy lights – like I have, hang decorations from the branches, or wrap the branches in garlands!

And all you need to make one like this is a bunch of dry branches or twigs, rope and your favourite colours from the Chalk Paint® palette!

I began by laying my branches out on the floor to create the shape that I was looking for, once this was decided I cut the branches and rope to size. (When cutting the rope remember to leave an allowance for the knots.)

Using Florence that had been watered down in to a wash I painted the rope and left it to dry by a heater. And then I started to paint the branches using my two colour distress technique, painting each branch in a different base colour; Provence, Versailles, Greek Blue, Old Violet, Duck Egg Blue, Emile and Olive.  Then, once this coat was completely dry, I painted over each branch with Old White.

After an hour or two, once the branches were dry, I applied a coat of my Clear Soft Wax and distressed the paint using a fine grit sandpaper, this reveals area of colour and highlights the gorgeous texture and pattern from the bark of the branches. This worked particularly well for me as I has used branches from a birch tree, which have a beautiful texture.

Using a double figure of 8 knot, I created a loop in the middle of the rope and hung this from a nail in the wall. Working down the rope, I used a clove hitch to secure each branch in place, leaving an even space between the branches. On the last branch I added a form of stopper knot and loosened the strands to create a tassel – where I has applied the paint to the surface of the rope with a brush, the remainder of the rope was left un-dyed, which created a pretty candy-stripe effect.

What do you think of my painted tree?

Yours, Annie