Finished Tree

Got the tree yesterday, and here it is all put together. The light plugs into the top of the blue twinkle lights, and it has its own switch.

Colin Baker gives a little wave, there, next to Amy Pond, Ood Sigma and Captain Jack.


My oldest felt that having the people made it look too much like a paper-doll tree, so in the end we rehung all the doctors and companions at the bottom, which has the added benefit of amusing the cat.

Ornaments!

 

Keeping in mind that this is a quickie fun project, not one for the ages, here are the ornaments for our Doctor Who Christmas tree. We will have normal ornaments, too, of course, although the thought is to restrict them to blue/white/silver, and blue or white lights.

I don't own these images, they're just off the web. They retain their original copyright.

You'll need:
files printed back-to back in color on card stock
small scissors
hole punch
razor knife/xacto knife
glue stick or contact cement
pin

Print files back-to-back on card stock.
I have done my best to align the back & front on the file. But as you can see from mine, the mysteries of different printers often offset them. Call it a feature, or a white drop shadow, and cut them out using a light to figure out where the edges are.

Be sure to leave white space above the heads so you can put a hole in for string. The top photo is an example, but I didn't put the cutting lines on the files, because of the printer shifting effect.

For the Fezzes, Bow Ties & Police Box signs, just cut them out and put a hole wherever you like. Same with the River Song Blue books.

The tardis(es) are a little different. They're smaller than their original size (you can find full-page versions on the interwebs). I just made them more ornament-sized.

Cut them out and assemble
I used contact cement to make tricky parts stick, and I used a pin to get the teensy light to go in the slots at the top.
I'm intending to use a sewing needle and thread to make a loop to hang them up. You can also perch them on the branches. Rubik's cube gives you an idea of scale.

Doctors & Companions

River Song's Blue Book

Bow Ties, Fezzes & Police Box Signs

Tardis: 3 styles

Tardis Light

As promised, here is the Doctor Who Tardis tree topper.

I don't know why I'm wired this way, but I refuse to do crafts that can't handle the use they're made for. And I have despised most of our traditional tree toppers (except the angel I made myself out of a doll that got water damaged) because that springy thing at the bottom never, ever works on a tree. I think they're meant for threading on a fake tree by twisting the top wire branch. Oh, and I also hate fake trees.

So here I find myself making a tree topper, and I don't want it to sag, flop, or in any other way make my Christmas any more work than it already is. I just want it to attach and glow brightly, and because it's the Tardis light, humorously.

DISCLAIMER: this craft uses lights. I am not an electrician. Everybody repeat that after me: not an electrician. What I know I learned at my intrepid father's knee. Make this thing at your own risk, and only if you're comfortable with the risk.

Here's what you'll need:

• Plastic jar — we always get a little four foot tree and put it up on a table (just like Queen Victoria), so the jar I used was the 15 oz Hellmann's mayonnaise, because we had just finished it, but you can use a bigger one. The blue is only ok, although various Tardises had different variations of blue, and it'll have to do. In retrospect, though, I should've swapped the lid for the darker Miracle Whip one we have.
• Drill & drill bits
• Candelabra socket base — I got mine at Home Depot, but I couldn't find it online. You can get it at Amazon here.
• Pliers and snips
• Small screwdriver
• Replacement plug — this thing is awesome (again, got it at HD, but can't find it online. Here it is at Amazon.)
• Longest thinnest bolt you can get — I used a carriage bolt, which felt stupid, but worked ok. 
• 2 Nuts to fit the bolt
• 2 washers to fit the bolt
• Candelabra bulb
• Teensy zip ties
• 2 big hair claw clips — these will hold the light to the tree securely.

The first attempt, I used a 50 bulb christmas tree string I found for $1.49 and this is what it looked like:

Fail, but I remade it better the second time with a candelabra socket.


Start with the lid. Drill from the inside out. I did it the opposite way, but it's much neater from inside out. Drill four holes. I started with two, but needed four on the fly, but I've helpfully photoshopped them in for you here.

Get the long bolt, nuts & washers.

Push the bolt and washer through from the inside of the lid in the hole that's a little apart from the others on the edge. Sorry for the weird mysterious red line. Ignore it.

Clamp the hair clips onto the bolt and thread the zip ties through. Pinch the clips and pull hard to secure them, being careful not to bend the little metal rod inside the clips. Keep at it until the clamps can't move up and down. They can rotate, though, but don't worry about that.

And now it looks like this:

Now for the light. I should've taken a photo, but I'm sure you can figure this out--cut the plug off the cord as straight across as you can. Remember, I'm not responsible, and not giving you electrical advice, just describing what I did.

Using the little screwdriver, unscrew the switch on the light cord. I personally find it helpful to rub the switch casing with a pencil to show which side had the cut cord, so I can put it together faster later.

Take the cord out and thread it through the center hole of the lid. Go slowly and be super careful because of that cut wire that went into the switch. Now sew the cord up the middle hole and out the third hole at the edge. This will stabilize the light, although you're free to gorilla glue or putty it if you prefer.

Reassemble the switch on the cord, and assemble the replacement plug, following the directions.

Twist in the bulb, and you're done. I'd show you on a tree, but I haven't gotten one yet. I did tag it, though, and tested the light on it at the tree farm. It fixes on beautifully and doesn't sag or droop, because it's so lightweight. I might replace the springy thing on my normal star with the bolt & hair clamp setup.

I'm good with this, but if you want more accuracy, you can add the little upright bars on the sides and put a cap on it. Because it absolutely must be very light (or end up droopy), the most I'd do is a very lightweight felt or foam. 

I first got hooked on Doctor Who when I was at college in the 1980s. A bunch of us would grab snacks and hang out in the common room at my friend Marianne's dorm and watch weird old British tv on PBS, and this was one of the favorites. We binge-watched, to the extent that was possible, being dependant on the PBS schedule, but for some reason, for some period of time, our local station broadcast a lot of Doctor Who. Once, I gave money and got a lovely little enameled Tardis pin, which I called my nerd-o-meter. If people recognized what it was, I said "ding ding ding," but most people thought it was just a nice bit of Anglophilia, and that was good, too.

I was sure the reboot a few years ago by BBC would be a hatchet job. I mean, the original was hardly high-quality drama. One of the joys of the old one was to recognize reused costumes (dancing eyeball-alien-thing?), identify pieces of set wobbling dangerously, and shout out when the editors reused a shot of the Doctor running down a hall and by reusing the same piece of film, flipped, so that he looked like he was running down a much longer corridor. Silly fun.

I didn't even bother watching the new version until I saw something I can't remember with David Tennant (probably an episode of QI, a terrific game show you should watch), and reconsidered, then binge-watched his, then watched all the Eccleston episodes. Now hooked, I am always on the edge for new episodes, and tell everybody about it like a Victorian missionary. Blessed be the Brits who upload to YouTube, for they have my eternal gratitude, and until recently, beat the local broadcast by about a year.

All of this is a preamble to the fact that we're all fans of the good Doctor here, and it's the 50th Anniversary, and it's Bridget's turn to choose the tree decoration colors this year, and she chose blue, silver and white for a Doctor Who tree.

We're pretty unlikely to do this more than once, so I don't want to invest much in the way of money, and we're not going to be cherishing precious ornaments, so they need to be quick-and-fab. However, Bridget has always wanted the Tardis door for her room, so I am making a police-box light for the top of the tree with the thought that it will be repurposed for her at a later point.

Doctor Who Tree Topper Tutorial