To celebrate the holidays in 2007, I packed up the Treearoo, and took it with me on the train to Stockholm.

Once again, we decked it out in simple decorations (this time some cute ditties from IKEA), and placed all our goodies under it for Christmas.

We let it stand – looking pretty and not taking up that much room – until my sister Chrissie and her son Henry came to visit in mid january. Nice!

Before I took it to Stockholm, I got a comment on the Treearoo post from Sheryl, asking for more accurate instructions on how to make the tree, what sort of drill bits and lengths I used for the branches, etc. I managed to measure all these and update the post just before I left, and low and behold, she’d gone and made one herself. The first North American Treearoo:

“Ikea didn’t have your version of the base/bowl (no surprise there), but I found that the wooden bowl they’re selling in the US this year does the job nicely. I painted it a glossy red. The main dowel is the tallest they had at the hardware store–four feet (I don’t think you indicated how long yours is). The man at the hardware store cut the main branch dowels for me for $2. We don’t have an appropriate sawing set-up in our apartment (although we do have a small hacksaw) and it’s below-freezing winter weather outside now, so I took the easy way. I think the hardware-store guy was a little interested in my project, too, or else he was bored. Anyway, he spent a considerable amount of time sawing the dowels while I browsed the plumbing hardware. I used my Swiss Army knife to cut the tiniest dowels apart. I spent the most time on fitting the branch dowels into the holes I drilled. I got them to stay with some maneuvering.”

Sheryl’s a bit internet-shy, but she did say I could quote her using the above paragraph. I’m just going to add her last line aswell, since it made my holiday that much brighter and fun. Sorry Sheryl;)

“I want you to know how much happiness I have gained because last year you decided to make a tree out of dowels, write out how you did it, and post it on your blog.”

I like that she used what she had available, and pimped it out the way she wanted – au naturel !

Bookmark the Treearoo Set on Flickr!

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 6:26 pm and is filed under Müsli Musings + Music, Tinkering. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.