The tree!!

I am sure you are all very excited.

We have made our tree…

And decorated it….

Just in case you have no idea what I am on about, I refer you back to this post here with all sorts of ideas for alternative and upcycled Christmas trees, given that we were unable to buy one this year. I have, in the meantime, been offerred about 3 secondhand artificial trees, and it has been suggested that I should just up to the woods and chop one down (I think technically, this counts as stealing though..) and had I seen the gorgeous lampshade tree beofre committing to the egg box one, I would have rather done that I think!

But having said all that, at least I stuck to my guns!

The first challenge was to collect enough egg boxes. I put out a WANTED request on Freecycle, and managed to bag a big stash all in one go, which was great. And as soon as friends and family knew what we were doing, they were all keen to offload theirs (on more than one occasion I arrived to pick BigSmall up from pre-school to find a carrier bag full of egg boxes hanging on his peg!) People seemed to really embrace the idea (although several people have told me how crazy I am) and be more than happy to help out with supplies, so before long, we had a big pile of egg boxes taking up far too much room in the garage.

The next challenge was to paint them. Hubby and I both had a go at doing a few and roping in BigSmall. He did do a couple, but they took a while-he sat perched on his chair like some old grand master painter, artistically, and very thickly dabbing paint on at an excrutiatingly slow pace! So we decided that the only option was a painting party. This sounds far more exciting than it was. It involved hubby, me, a bottle of wine, a DVD, an old tablecloth on the floor, a LOT of green paint and some egg boxes.

By the end of the evening, we had a pile of green egg boxes, and I was very much regretting not having accepted a secondhand tree…

I ended up with very painty hands:

And hubby didn’t…

Some would say that this is a reflection of the amount of painting done by each party (although to be fair hubby spent a lot of time peeling annoying labels off the boxes), hubby insists it is just because I am v.messy. How rude.

So once they were all painted and dry, we had to assemble it…. This was done with the aid of a glue gun.

We also had to have it up off the floor on a table to try and stop SmallSmall from pulling it over/attempting to climb up it (we can but hope..)

At this point, we were both a little disappointed.

Remember, this is what we were using for inspiration….

It is obviously far bigger than ours could be, due to space restrictions. And painted far more skillfully, neatly and probably with more suitable paint than whatever leftover bitsof acrylic and craft paints we happened to have hanging around.

To be honest, we were both a little crestfallen at this stage, as it did really look like pile of badly painted green egg boxes in the vague shape of a tree.

I hadn’t given up hope though, and thought that some decorations might help jolly it up a bit. Hubby very boringly sensibly vetoed putting lights on it as he pointed out that they were probably a potential fire hazard-spoilsport! And it can’t really take much weight. So I made some paper decorations from old books and scraps of material. And my mum knitted us these fabby snowmen and crackers!

So here it is….

At last….

Our Make Do and Mend Egg Box Christmas Tree!

And here it is again from another angle..

I am the first to admit, it is not the greatest tree in the world. And I was a bit bummed for a bit. But then hubby gave me a talking to, and pointed out politely that this was my idea, and it was the only tree we were going to have this year, so I really should get on and learn to love it. And I think I kind of do…!