Home made fake tree

I love plants in the house, anything green to me, just makes a home look more.....homey! I have a bunch of plants around the house, but taking care of them and running around three levels of the house to water then two times a week....well, let's just say I am a little lazy sometimes- especially when it comes to stairs. Our stairs in particular. But, we also have only a North/South exposure, which usually means most of the plants end up on the south side of the house because of sunlight, and we have areas of the house that don't get much sun. The other issue is that we also have two landings half way up each set of stairs- so we have two very dark landings. The landings are rather large and I have spent the last year trying to figure out what I wanted to put in them for decorating. 

I have liked the look of the fake trees, but I am a cheap skate and think it's positively absurd to pay $120 for a piece of plastic. Right after Christmas I was perusing the craft store for bargains and found some fake trees on clearance, but they were still over $50 which was not appealing to me. I was looking at the tree and the trunk of the tree caught my eye and I stepped closer and had to laugh. The craft store had gotten crafty. I called my 19 year old daughter over saying "Chelsea...look at this!"

 She looked at it and said "ya...OK?" 

I told her "NO....look at it! What is it made of?" She looked closer, squinting her eyes and started to laugh. I was thrilled beyond belief when we left the store. I had a nice looking tall vase, greenery foam, decorative pebbles and greenery in our bags. All for less than $30. The vase was on clearance, plus I had a 40% off coupon. The vase was originally $60, I got it for $15. The greenery was 50% off too. 

 List of supplies you will need:

Tree trunk (small and dead)

Floral foam

Small decorative pebbles 

Greenery bunches (I used two but if you want a taller or fuller tree you might want 3 or 4 bunches)

Hot glue gun

Drill with a bit

Wire cutters

Here is how I did it- and this is how it was done at the craft store!

    I have some tree trunks in my backyard that I brought down from the burnt forest behind our family cabin in the mountains. I used one with no bark on it. (Don't want to worry about bugs) I used Aspen with the bark taken off of it. It was just the right height already so it didn't need to be cut. I would estimate that it was about 3 feet tall. 

  I took the floral greenery and cut it (what a mess that makes) to fit the top of the vase and then put a hole it in to inset the trunk into. Make sure that it sits securely so that it won't fall over. I cut the whole a little small and had to force it in. Then I took the drill and bit and drilled a bunch of whole at the top of the trunk. I cut the wholes at an upward angle. Then I took the greenery bunches, and cut them off of the base they came on with the wire cutters so that each one was separate. I took each branch that I cut off, added a dab of hot glue and placed them in the drilled hole. (I would recommend starting at the bottom and working your way up so you can see what you are doing.) Once I had all the branches in the holes, I bent the wire in the branch just a week bit so that they fanned out a little. That gave it a natural tree look to it. 

   Then I took the small pebbles and hot glued them to the top of the floral foam so that they completely covered it.

   Better pictures to come soon- with more close up's and when the lighting is better. I probably took me about an hour to put it together. not too bad really. I am quite pleased with it and may do another one in the near future. But, I will have to find just the right priced vase first.