How to sleep in a tree

Back in March I started turning Sienna's bed into a four-poster tree and after some more work yesterday I'd say it's basically finished. On the wall are the gorgeous Love Mae Twitter Birds fabric wall stickers that we bought from here. Bedspread and pillowcase are Pip Studio (from Bed Bath 'n' Table here in AU). Reminds me of this photo on flickr, though a lot more vintage-y homemade and girly in style! I'll try to get a better photo later, had serious white balance problems with this one.

How it's done:

Step One - Get a secondhand bed, preferably white metal with removable tops on the four posts.

Step Two - Cut down cherry plum saplings which are springing up like mad in the garden, and select four, cutting to size (may require some testing, you want it about 6 ft high but how you cut the branches depends how far down the posts you can get the branches to go.

Step Three - Paint the branches white. I didn't do this until later but it would have made life much easier to paint them before putting them in the bed.

Step Four - Tear up long strips of white cotton voile or other fabric and wrap all the main branches, stitching the ends in place as you go with a needle and thread.

Step Five - Insert and stitch into place various artificial flowers (we've gone for plastic kitschy ones I bought ages ago from here when they were still on etsy) at key points around the branches. Perhaps add a bird, dragonfly, butterflies, little toadstools like we have or whatever sparks your imagination. We are supposed to put the nest from this photo at the top but I'm quite fond of it as a photo prop at the moment so we'll see how it goes.

Step Six - Go to sleep and dream like a little bird...