When choosing a Christmas tree, so many factors come into force! Synthetic or a live one? Growing in a pot or cut and propped up in a stand? Bombarded with familiar images of the green clad tree weighted under a number of baubles and glittering lights, only conventional comes to mind! Here’s a thought; make Christmas 2013 the year when you create your own ‘alternative’ tree!

Starting with the basic cone shape, so many materials can be used to fool the eye into acceptance of an actual tree. Perhaps a string of lights, a pile of books or a step ladder covered in chicken wire can be made tree-like. If you are handy with hammer and nails, a really impressive facsimile of a tree can be made through piling up a number of bare timber planks cut into graded sizes, easily hammered together resulting in a minimal Scandinavian design, you could even decorate it with traditional baubles and lights, brilliant!

And why not create an ‘invisible’ tree, just suspend your decorations in a suitable form and confound your family and friends as they wonder where it went! So get your creative juices flowing and why not start a trend with an incredible alternative tree!