Paint a pretty tree and hooks focal point

Photographs Francois Oberholster

You will need

TOOLS

• masking tape

• scissors

• carbon paper

• ballpoint pen

• paintbrush

• tape measure

• jigsaw

• vice grip

• drill with 3mm wood bit and 5mm masonry bit

• screwdriver

• hammer

SHOPPING LIST

• 250ml Tjhoko Paint in the colour Jane’s Jade

• template (download it here)

• five 22mm copper elbows (90D)

• five 22mm copper stop ends

• 22mm dowel stick

• all purpose glue

• five 5mm x 45mm nail-in anchors and plugs

Get started

1. DOWNLOAD AND PRINT THE TREE TEMPLATE at 100%; it will print on several pages. Stick the pages together with masking tape and roughly cut out the tree shape.

2. Secure the template on the wall with masking tape. Slip the carbon paper in-between the wall and the template and trace the tree onto the wall. You’ll have to move the carbon paper around behind the template to get to all the different bits.

3. Carefully paint the tree with three coats of paint, allowing it to dry between layers.

4. Measure and mark five 17mm and five 30mm lengths on the dowel stick.

5. Secure the dowel stick in the vice grip and cut with a jigsaw on the marks you made in step 4.

6. Drill a hole in the centre of each of the 17mm dowel stick pieces then insert the nail-in screw right through the hole

7. Make the hooks: Use the 30mm dowel stick pieces to join a copper elbow and a stop end together. Apply glue to the dowel stick piece and insert it in the elbow and the stop end.

8. Using the 5mm masonry bit, drill holes in the wall on the tree where you’d like to attach the hooks. Place the plugs in the holes and hammer in the nail-in screws with the dowels in place.

9. Apply glue to the dowels and slip the copper hooks you made in step 7 onto them.