With every new Christmas I become more and more sad about all the thousands of trees, thrown in these big piles with people walking around with fussy looks on their faces, saying: “This is not beautiful!”, “Look at this one – it does not have enough branches!”, “Oh, rubbish!”…
I feel deep pain about every broken branch, which should be a kind of compromise between nature and Christmas decoration, but it is not, because we still hurt these beautiful trees.
I have friends, which every Christmas buy small trees in a pot, and after the holidays they grow them – in the mountains, on a farm, somewhere out of the city.
Christmas must be a celebration of creativity, not the celebration of the destruction. So, my pre-Christmas idea is about this – very easy to make, with materials, which are in every home, and presenting great possibilities to recycle.
The materials are in every home
Everything starts with a styrofoam ball which you have to decorate with bonbon or muffin paper cups. If you do not have a styrofoam ball, it is easy to make a ball from old newspapers and wrap it with paper tape. If you do not have a paper tape in this exact moment, you can wrap the ball with some cotton thread.
After that just glue the muffin and bonbon paper cups onto the ball.
Put some glue in the centre of every paper cup and decorate with small red (or white, or golden) styrofoam balls. Now the crown of your Christmas tree is ready!
You need a stand too
Look around yourself – maybe you will find a small flower pot or a single coffee cup or other suitable container. Put another styrofoam ball inside it and pack it in with tissues/serviettes. Of course if you do not have a ball, use some homemade clay (flour+salt+water – 1:1+ a little bit). Take a toothpick or a skewer (depends on the size of the crown) – stick it inside the ball crown with some glue and decorate it with red or green paper or satin ribbon. This will be the trunk of the tree – push it all the way into the second ball and secure it firmly with some tissues/serviette and glue. If you used homemade clay, leave it to dry and secure it with paper after that.
Hide the ball, the clay and the tissue with some small Styrofoam balls too. In the end you can tie the cup with a red ribbon – just for more pleasure.
And your Christmas tree is ready! You can decorate the table, the office desk or the window.
And celebrate, because your Christmas tree saved the life of one real small tree. If you create this decoration with your kids, this will be a great lesson on how to care about Nature. It is very important! What will be the world where your children will live?
Materials: styrofoam balls – 2 big, styrofoam balls – 1 pack of small ones, bonbon and muffin paper cups, glue or hot silicon (be careful, some glues melt the styrofoam, so ask in the shop about glue which will not melt it or use hot silicon), satin ribbon, small flower pot or, a tea cup, toothpick or a skewer, tissue napkins.
Time: around 1 hour (if you work with homemade clay, it needs one day in a warm place to dry).
Enjoy!
Merry Christmas!
For more opportunities to recycle, read The scrapbooking challenge – why not?
