Every year I try to avoid buying and storing a massive Christmas tree. We have a bush pole in the middle of our living area so we thought we’d try turning it into a tree. Here’s a quick tutorial if you want to give it a go. Materials – 6m cotton drill fabric (108cm wide) – Retic pipe and screws 1. Measure and plan the shape of your tree We made our tree with a 86cm circumference at the top and 3m circumference at the bottom.             2. Make the framework Cut retic pipe to size and use joiners so you can slide the fabric onto the pipe and then attach it to the pole later.  The pipes need to be fixed to the bottom and top of the pole with nails or screws to create tension on the fabric. Note: it took a bit of trial and error to get the tension right.               3. Measure and cut the fabric panels I created 6 …

So this event challenged my skills the most: designing invite, cake baking, cardboard crafting, creating a playlist of car songs and learning to troubleshoot scalextrics technical difficulties.