MAKE MODERN CEMENT TREES

by SA Garden and Home

2 Materials

Use these stylish cement trees to create an eye-catching mantelpiece display

make modern cement trees, concrete masonry

What you’ll need:

Cement (we used a 5kg bag)

Plastering sand

2 buckets

Gravel or sand: to support the cones when drying

Small spade for mixing

Scissors or knife

Heavy duty plastic/acrylic sheeting: it needs to be flexible enough to roll up but also remain strong enough to hold the cement mixture. We used an A0 size sheet from The Plastics Workshop. An old laminated poster could also possibly do the trick.

Packaging tape: to secure the cone together

1. Make the cone moulds out of the plastic sheeting. Start by rolling from one corner of the sheet until it resembles a cone. When happy with the shape, roughly draw and then cut it out. Roll it into a cone again and tape up with packaging tape. Pay special attention to the tip of the tree, tape this up well so that the cement can’t drain out.

2. Mix a batch of cement using one part cement, one part sand and a half part water. Mix together well until uniform in colour. It should be the consistency of thick porridge (able to pour but not too runny).

3. Pour the mixture gradually into the cones, shake it down occasionally in between pouring to prevent large air bubbles.

4. Position the cement-filled cones in a bucket with gravel or sand as support. Try to ensure the cones remain as upright as possible, otherwise the trees will dry skew.

5. Leave to dry for at least 24 hours then carefully cut away the plastic sheeting and remove the finished tree. Now you can experiment by taping up the trees with masking tape and painting the tops. We used spray-paint to get a metallic finish.

Note: Glue felt or cloth cut to shape to the base of each tree so they don’t scratch surfaces.

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Frequently asked questions

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2 questions

Caseyem11 on Nov 10, 2017

Can you add color to the cement mixture?

2
Rachel on Nov 26, 2019

what copper paint did you use? (It looks very shiny.)

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3 of 6 comments

Martha on Nov 22, 2020

These are awesome. I made concrete pumpkins for fall, now I’m going to make concrete trees 🌲. Thanks for the idea!!

1 Reply
- Richey1202 on Nov 08, 2021
  
  How did you create the pumpkins? Did you use a plastic pumpkin as a 'mould'?
  
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Char on Nov 08, 2021

These are awesome!

1 Reply