AN award-winning North-East printing firm has designed an innovative executive desktop Christmas tree.

The tree, made by Newcastle lithographic printers, Statexcolourprint, comes with step-by-step assembly instructions, tinsel, baubles and crackers.

Rather than send out a traditional Christmas card, the Statex team decided they wanted to inject some fun into the festive season and came up with the idea of challenging recipients to make their own cards.

Director Jim Dark said: "Christmas time should be all about winding down, spending time with colleagues and having fun and this is what we wanted to demonstrate with our Christmas cards.

"Everyone likes to mess around at this time of year and we thought, why not produce a card that people can create themselves and do something different, because that's what we are all about."

In green and brown packaging, the tree comes with its own stand and a Christmas message from everyone at the firm