DIY String Light Christmas Tree

You Need

PINE WOOD

DRILL

FAIRY LIGHTS

SCREWS

TWINE

MEASURING TAPE

Christmas trees, what’s not to love?

But sadly, living in a small apartment doesn’t allow me to partake in a 3 metre high tree with all the trimmings, unless Ben and I want to sleep out in the liftwell.

Instead, in the last few years we’re usually forced to find an alternative, with varying levels of success (post it note one was ok although a bit wonky, book shelf one didn’t work that well). This year, I decided to step up to the plate on the Christmas-tree-for-a-small-apartment front. Armed with one of the new Bosch IXO cordless screwdrivers I decided to combine a few of my favourite things – getting crafty, pine wood and fairy/string lights. Enter, the minimalist light tree, perfectly 2D for those of you with space constraints, and with all the drama of an actual Christmas tree, but without the messy clean up. Read on to see how.

For the piece of pine, mine was 1 metre x 2 metres (1.1 yards x 2.2 yards) but you can make it as big or small as you want. For the screws, I used 25 x 2.5cm long screws as well as 5m of fairy lights.

Work out where the top of your tree will sit - I measured about 30cm (12 inches) down from the top edge of the pine and used the measuring tape to find the middle point. Drill in a screw here.

Using your twine, work out the shape of your tree. Add two screws at the bottom and tie the triangle tree shape to use as a guide when you add the rest of your screws.

Drill the crews in down the sides of the triangle shape around 10cm (4 inches) apart. You'll want to do one side first, and then move over to the other side, placing those screws roughly between the ones on the other side so the zip zag of the string lights will work. It would be a pretty daunting task if you were mailing them in (although still completely do-able), but the drill had be finished in 5 minutes.

The finished screws should look like this.

Take your fairy lights and, starting from the top, wind the cord around the outside of the screws. Go all the way down to the bottom.

Tuck the cord to the back of the piece of pine, and plug it into a socket (we used an extension cord to do this), then turn on the lights.

Make sure you keep your lights and socket well ventilated and don’t leave it on when you go out!