Opulent Cottage: Holiday Sale and a Bottle Brush Tree Tutorial

Here are a few photos from our annual Holiday-Palooza at my friend Molly’s this past weekend.

Remember the colorful flocked trees of the 70’s? These bottle brush Christmas trees have been given a dose of retro color … why should we all live with just green, when it comes to holiday trees? In a minute I’ll show you how to make these colorful guys. And I loved making these ornaments from vintage paperback books. They’re glam and green!

My friend Lee made these gorgeous wreaths from evergreen trimmings. In the background you can see my tea towels, which have a holiday granny-twist to them this year.

These yo-yo barrettes are always a big hit with the girlie crowd. I crocheted some belts and flower scarfs, too.

Lee’s burlap coffee bag pillows are so fantastic. Yes, they really were coffee bags!

I thought you all might like to see how easy it is to make the colorful bottle brush trees. And it’s DIY Day at Kimba’s so let’s go! They’re so easy and the result is so wonderful, for such a simple project. Fun to do with your kids, also. You’ll need bottle brush trees (the real ones, not the plastic kind), dye from the fabric or craft store, some glue and glitter. That’s all!

Start with a large bowl or plastic tub that you can fill with water and a little bleach. I used a large plastic storage tub, because I was bleaching 3 large bags of trees (found at Home Depot). I didn’t measure exactly, but probably used 4 or 5 gallons of water and ½ cup of bleach. If you’re only doing a couple of trees, you could just fill up a large bowl and add a splash of bleach. Submerge the trees and let them soak in the mixture overnight.

This is what you will have the next morning. They’re pretty enough like this, also. I’ll glitter a few of these as they are. Rinse the trees and set them aside to dry.

I used tie dye from the craft store to get the saturated color I wanted on my trees. The package of five tie dyes is a bargain at Michaels, especially if you use your 40% off coupon. They come in several different combinations of colors. The dyes are also sold individually. Mix the dye in the bottle that is provided, pour into a glass bowl, and dip the trees directly into the dye solution. And wear gloves, unless you really like pink and purple fingers!

The green dye was little dark, so I just squirted some of it into a bowl of water, which created the lime green color that I wanted. I soaked these trees in the dye a little longer. For the lighter pink, I used a package of Rose Pink Rit Dye. I added about ½ package to 1 cup of hot water. I did rinse and re-dye them a few times to get the right shade of pink.

Let the trees dry, by color, on a plate or platter lined with paper towels. If you let the different colors touch, you WILL have tie-dyed trees! If that happens, just re-bleach them. When they’re dry, fluff them up, paint on a little school glue, and dip the edges of your trees into some snowy-looking glitter. We're gonna keep it real here, so here's the photo of the mess that my family came home to!

Aren’t they pretty, and fun? So 1970’s! Who out there is old enough to remember?!!

Enjoy,

Love,

Andrea

Comments

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Those are so cool! Where would you find these trees to start with?

Posted by: Ellen Price | December 07, 2009 at 09:25 PM

Your trees came out really nice! I love that you used all those different colors.

Manuela

Posted by: The Pleasures of Homemaking | December 08, 2009 at 07:20 AM

That last photo is just extra precious! I'm old enough at 52. Oh, these bottle brush trees are so sweet now. Funny, I never thought them sweet back then. You've given them a vintage perfection. Loved this!
Brenda

Posted by: Brenda Kula | December 08, 2009 at 04:12 PM

Wow, LOVE those colors!!!

Posted by: Karla Nathan | December 09, 2009 at 10:52 PM

Great tutorial! Thank you!

Posted by: Rita @ TesoroFino.com | September 22, 2010 at 09:58 AM

You can buy big bags of these trees at K-Mart and Michaels. These ones have plastic bases. Sears have some with wood bases. I bought both kinds. I have been collecting mini trees for some years ever since I saw a man's collection of mini Christmas trees in a magazine--and fell in love with them. Now I have two ways to add these trees to my Christmas collection--by finding them by chance or making them.

Posted by: Rebecca | November 29, 2010 at 08:32 PM