I recently posted an idea for recycling your Christmas tree to make a cross for Easter. Sounds like a hit with several of my homeschooling mama friends, so I’m going to post a craft-along!

If you haven’t left your tree out on the curb yet - don’t! I’m going to attempt to load pictures of our Jack doing the project over the next few days. You’re going to need a saw, a hachet or plane, possibly some loppers, and rope or leather lashing. Oh yes, and the Christmas tree!

First, take down the Christmas tree… That was easy for us, the poor thing fell over just a couple of days after Christmas. Dear, oh dear… I was too distraught to get a photo.

Bring it outside and remove all of the branches and then meet me back here for more instructions!

Here’s Jack hauling up the remains of our ill-fated Christmas tree:

And with the tools of the trade:

Next, he began lopping off the branches:

Finally, he removed the twiggy bit at the top:

And here’s the finished trunk:

NEXT TIME: Cutting and dressing the trunk…

Now that you’ve got your trunk cleared of branches, you need to cut the top 1/3 off.

Using your hatchet, begin stripping the branch ’stumps’ along the trunk pieces:

Then “peel” the bark from the trunk pieces using your hatchet, so they look like this:

Now, if you want to plane down the sides to make them more square, you certainly can. Jack decided that he liked the rough, rounded look. Peeling the bark off took him about 45 minutes. We had a smallish tree this year, so yours may take longer.

NEXT TIME: Attaching upright and crosspiece…

Posted: 01|12|07 at 1:36 pm. Filed under: from the workshop.
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