Holiday Craft Series Project 2

I just love my blogging friends. Several have posted their holiday craft projects recently on their blogs. Shanna's family worked on their own button trees (good for you Brown family). Susan spent the weekend designing a stunning ornament wreath. She and her husband are hoping to travel to China in January and we're getting together with them tomorrow night (I can't wait). Robbi's girls worked on super cute gum drop wreaths.

Here's my Holiday craft project number two. This second craft project requires a full bottle of bleach, a package of green bottle brush Christmas trees, loads of glue, paint brushes to spread the glue, white glitter and tiny beads.



It's a really messy project (I must have vacuumed and scrubbed the kitchen floor 3 times during the project) but I love the way it turned out. I collect vintage Christmas decorations and never have enough bottle brush trees for my cardboard Christmas village displays.



I especially like the way white bottle brush trees look versus the modern green dyed trees. This craft project allows you to turn a green bottle brush tree into an antique white bottle brush tree.

Step one. Poor equal part bleach and hot water into a plastic container and soak the Christmas bottle brush trees to remove the green dye. The dye literally starts pouring off the trees within minutes. I think all my trees were done in less than 20 minutes. Be sure to wear rubber gloves to save your hands and an apron to protect your clothes.



Step two. Put the trees on newspapers to dry. I actually put a floor fan near the trees to speed up the drying process.



Step three. Pour craft glue (Elmer's glue is fine) into plastic bowls and using a paint brush, spread the glue onto the tree branches.

Step four. Shake white glitter all over the glue coated branches. Be sure to lay newspapers down to collect the excess glitter so that you can recycle the left over glitter on additional trees. I used fairly chunky glitter and like the way it turned out.



Step five. Using a hot glue gun (Emma couldn't help with this part) I took apart a beaded garland that I bought at antique store and hot glued the beads into the tree. You could buy any type of bead garland at your local craft store and glue the beads into the tree.



Aren't these little white trees festive? Even if you don't own little Christmas houses, these trees would look festive mixed in with candles and other holiday decorations.

On Thursday, I'll be posting my next craft. I'll give you a hint, it looks really cute on my Chinese-themed tree. I've actually got several ideas for decorating a Chinese-themed tree that I can't wait to share. Nikki (another favorite blogger) gave me the idea when she sent me something in preparation for Josie last Christmas. You'd be amazed at what I can recycle into a craft project.



Happy crafting!!