These are pretty impressive trees individually, but they take a while to make, and are a bit tricky to store.
The core of the tree is a bit of real tree. I found some twigs which branched much like a large tree, and collected them. The tiny twigs and masses of foliage are made from rubberised horse hair. This is something which used to be used a lot for stuffing furniture. Today, fire-proof foams are used instead, but some modelling shops have it, as I think do furniture restorers. A visitor to this page e-mailed me to say that he had tried coconut hair, which is the modern successor to horse hair for stuffing furniture, and that it worked fairly well as a substitute. Rubberised horse hair is still better, though, if you can get it.
The core of the tree is attached to the base by shoving a bit of wire into the bottom of it, and bending this wire into a coil which holds the tree up. This coil is then taped down to a card base, and covered with wall filler, then flocked.
The rubberised horse hair is a variegated pale brown, but can be sprayed black before attaching to the tree. I'm not sure how important it is to spray it black, but many people insist on this stage. Glue pieces of the horse hair to the tree, leaving artistic gaps, then trim the pieces to make them look less square. The hair comes in sheets about one and a quarter inches thick, and when you cut it, tends to end up a bit too square, so some teasing and trimming is needed to hide this.
Glue flock, of the sawdust kind, to the blobs of horse hair, with lots of PVA. When the glue is dry, shake and brush off the loose flock, and spray with matt varnish, which helps a bit to hold the flock on, though some loss is inevitable over time. Store in a dark place, to avoid the flock's fading.
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