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Hi, I'm Mike Edwards, the website is diydoctor.org.uk, and we've been puzzling over the thousands
of emails you send us. We've been wondering how to create a Christmas tree that doesn't
cost you an arm and a leg. Christmas trees can be very expensive, getting more expensive
by the year, so we had a little look in the workshop for some bits and bobs, trying to
make a DIY Doctor do it yourself christmas tree. We've tried to use everything that
we've got lying around, and things that any self-respecting DIYer would have around.
We've created the base of the tree from a piece of Sterling board-you can use plywood,
you can even use cardboard. Simply cut it down, use a skill saw, use a hand saw, and
create some branches, the branches don't have to be the same material, they can be
timber offcuts, anything that you've got-just nail them or screw them to the main trunk.
Then cut them off at a slight angle-if you look at a Christmas tree, you can work out
the angle. Now we're going to start decorating it and we're going to start from the top
- the very first thing that people think about on top of the Christmas tree is a fairy. Well,
we didn't have a fairy, but we do use washing-up liquid as a lubricant to join pipes, so we used a Fairy bottle and, just
for good measure, we cut out a picture of Bob the builder and stuck that on too. So
that's our DIY Christmas fairy. Next, we thought candles-you've got to have candles.
On every Christmas card you have candles, so how can we create them? Get a length of
copper pipe-you've probably got some offcuts lying around, and use a pipe slice to cut
off 100mm lengths. For the flame, we wanted something yellow-we thought about fibreglass
insulation, but the only roll we had was pink, so we used a decorator's sponge. We ripped
off bits of the sponge, put them inside the copper piping and trimmed them to a point.
The pipes are clipped to the tree-how else would you clip a pipe but with a pipeclip?
You may have some of these lying around, or they're very cheap to buy. Next, we thought
angels, but we didn't have any angels - we do have wing nuts. We drilled a hole at the
end of the branches, threaded a cable tie through the hole, threaded the wingnut onto
the cable tie, and fastened some short lengths of speaker wire to the end to make sure the
wingnut doesn't slip off. That's our wingnut angel. And then of course we need some foliage.
You can see we've used the speaker wire that I told you about-you might have some
of this hanging about, or just strip out the inner insulated red or brown wire from a 1.5mm
or 2mm electrical cable and use that. And of course there's this, which is Earth sleeve
- you've probably got some of this hanging around as well. Cut your foliage wire or sleeve
into lengths of about 100mm or so, and an staple gun it on. We did think about making
it a bit more seasonal, and using some of these-these are wall tie spacers, 2 mm, which
if you wanted to, you could glue to the Christmas tree for snowflakes-we might do that later
on. The other thing that we did is used spray adhesive to spray the branches, got a handful
of sawdust, and threw it at the Christmas tree to give the illusion of snowflakes. There
it is, ladies and gentlemen - DIY Doctor's DIY Christmas tree.