Difficulty Rating -

Fancy an unusual Christmas tree for a change? This Christmas tree is made from fabric and with a dab of essential oils on the branches, it's sure to enhance your environment visually and smellily.

To make a fabric Christmas tree you will need...
A plastic fizzy pop bottle, a four inch plastic plant pot, 450g of all purpose decorators interior filler, approximately 32cm of wooden doweling (about pencil thickness), tin foil, paint, assorted fabrics, a Christmas bauble as a tree topper, stuffing and binding an beads to decorate.

Begin by pushing some tin foil into the bottom of the plat pot to cover the holes.

Mix up the interior filler to a thick mixture and put I inside the plant pot. Push the doweling into the mixture in the centre of the pot of filler.

Cut the plastic bottle around the top where the thickness of the plastic changes. Keep the neck part of the bottle and discard the rest. Turn the neck of the bottle upside-down and thread it down over the doweling and push it into the filler a little way to fix it into place.

The bottle top and the doweling should be self-supporting with the thickness of the mixture holding them up, but criss-cross some selotape over the top of the plant pot to keep the dowel upright. Leave it over night too completely dry out.

Paint the plant pot, dowel, plastic bottle, and the exposed filler. I used a metallic bronze coloured paint. You may need to apply a few coats of paint to get a good finish. Leave to dry.

Glue some bronze coloured bindind around the top of the plant pot.

Making the branches of the Christmas tree...
Cut out six circles with radiuses of 14.5cm, 11cm, 8cm, 6cm, 5cm and 3cm. A free printable patters n the circles can be printed out here...

Fold each cloth circle in half and in half again and snip the corner to create a small hole (about the size of the doweling) in the centre of the fabric.

Begin with the largest circle. Sew a line of running stitches around the edge of the fabric. Thread the fabric circle over the doweling and draw up the stitches slightly. Lightly stuff the circle and draw up the stitches a little more until the edge of the fabrics is roughly 4cm away from the doweling. Finnish off.

Work the 11cm radius circle next in the same way, but this time draw the fabric up so that it is only 3cms away from the dowel, making sure that this 'branch' conceals the stuffing from the previous branch.

Continue in this way until all the circles have been added to the Christmas tree.

With PVA glue, stick the Christmas tree bauble to the top of the doweling to create a Christmas tree topper. Decorate the branches with beads, small bells, stings of pearls and anything to hand - a couple of little stitches should hold each decoration in place.

Finish off by dabbing a few drops of essential oils to the Christmas tree branch to create a pleasant aroma.