Make Mini Trees From One Big Tree

Cathy has a very fun idea for an old Christmas tree - I get that it is now well past Christmas and you've taken all the decorations down at this point, but maybe you have an old tree you're planning on pitching and just haven't gotten around to yet? Instead of tossing, you might want to hold onto it and make this next year...

She removed the lower branches from her big artificial tree and turned them into 12 little trees for kids to decorate. Love this - what a great idea for a kid's Christmas party! Using a hack saw, she removed the branches and cut off the curve on the metal part of the branch, then inserted the branch upright in blocks of wood (Al drilled a hole in the middle of each block). The kids got to decorate their own tree using decorations Cathy bought at the dollar store. Economical, fun, and a great way of turning trash into treasure!

Makes me want to cut my tree apart and have a party 😉

Marquee Inspired Letters

I've seen this idea a bunch of places and done many different ways - some have actual lights in them, or use gold Christmas ornaments, I really liked one that used ping pong balls as the "lights" but I couldn't find inexpensive ping pong balls so went with small white glittered Christmas ornaments and love, love, love how this turned out. Obviously you can spell any word you want (I did Christmas but it'd be super cute any time of year with a different word or just an initial). Paper mache letters aren't very expensive but they seem to be on sale frequently so I just waited until I saw them half priced - these are about 8" tall (there are smaller and larger ones available) and cost me $1.50 each.

Supplies:
-paper mache letters
-small ornaments
-exacto knife
-paint and paint brush
-hot glue

-Carefully cut off the top of the letter with an exacto knife.

-Paint the letters with craft paint (I used a 1" foam brush and teal colored paint).

-Remove the top hanger from the ornament (I just pulled them off with little pliers). 

-Hot glue the stem side of the ornament (where the hanging thing was) to the inside of the painted letter.

K-Cup Snowman Lighted Garland

Remember the recycled k-cup ghost lights I made for Ronda's October seasonal display table? Click here for that post and the directions. Well, hope you've been continuing to save your used k-cups 'cuz here is another cutie project - snowmen! Make the same way as the ghosts using sharpie markers to draw on the faces (black eyes, orange carrot nose, burgundy for mouth), then poke a hole in the tops and fit them on a light strand. Love.

DIY Christmas Tree

My friend Scott sent me this idea and I had to try it...genius really. I don't know where he got this idea but I'm totally stealing it from him. It's garland wrapped around a tomato cage - totally made my own Christmas tree!

Supplies:
- round tomato cage (or in my case 2 cages!)
- 45' standard soft garland
- 18' wired garland (mine has lights in it, Scott's doesn't)
- a planter or not, depending on where you are going to put it
- pine cones, berries, bulbs, lights...whatever  you want
- a bunch of 4" zip ties
- tape to shape the tip of the tree

All the instructions I needed apparently :)

Scott's tree with the wired garland, bulbs,
berries, and cones. He made two of these. 

Since he is a guy he just sent me these two pictures without any instructions - so of course I blew up his phone texting him a ton of questions... I think I was just supposed to figure it out from the picture haha. After he gave me detailed info I was able to build my own tree, and so can you. Not hard at all once I got going - the worst thing was trying to find the wired garland, every place I checked was out of it. I was going to give up and scrap this idea but then decided to just modify the project and do it with what I could still find, and it turned out great. Different from Scott's of course, but that's the beauty of DIY! He found all of his supplies at Lowes, and made two trees for $50 total (instead of paying $100 each at the store for them!). Mine cost more because I used two cages for one tree and 18' pre-lit garland instead of wired.

Start by putting the cage upside down either in a planter or just flat on the ground. Scott used one cage per tree but I found after wrapping soft garland over one cage without the wired garland to fill it out it made a more triangle shape tree instead of round - so I ended up using two cages to give it more shape. I bent one to fit inside the planter and then put one over the planter for stability. Wrap tape (I used electrical tape) around the 3 legs to make a cone shape on the top. Using the zip ties to hold the garland in place, wind the 45' of standard garland around and around the cage. When it's completely covered add the 18' of wired garland overtop - this makes it fuller and fills in the gaps. I used additional standard garland that had lights in it instead since I couldn't find the wired kind and it turned out good - "make it work" is the motto here. Add whatever decorations you want, I just did a few cones and berries.


I wasn't loving the bottom of the cage being exposed so wrapped an additional string of lights around the the planter - more lights always helps :) Thanks Scott, this was a good one!