I spent entirely too much time on Pinterest. I’ll just put that information out there. It’s probably not news to most people. Anyhoo. Lately I’ve been looking at Christmas crafts and posting them to my Christmas ideas section in the “diy craft make” board.
These recycled jewelry trees caught my eye. Between projects last week, I began gathering up old jewelry and other items that I could put onto a tree. Silly me, I thought I had enough items just sitting around. Maybe if I made a four inch tree!
I generally go big. So of course I my first attempt was out of reach. Worse, I sort of threw everything in. By everything I mean all of it. Wow, what a mess. So much. That taught me a lesson in restraint. Ha! I peeled it off so quickly that I forgot to take a photo. Trust me, it was a fail.
But I’m a determined chick, so once everything was back in its original condition–goodness, I’d put a lot of hot glue–I organized. Some things were just not going to work. Some colors were clashing with every other color. Some gawky items were too big! Talk about gawky. (Gawky is a Southern word for over the top tacky.)
So starting over, I reevaluated my options. In the end, I pared down the pieces to metals and pearls. Then I pared down the size of the tree. (Maybe I should have measured.) Of course, now I really didn’t have enough stuff, so I started digging through old buttons. I have many, as it turns out. In all states, colors and conditions. Add few beads and I began again.
I love this piece! From the beginning I thought I’d use my old silver sugar bowl as a stand. I cleaned it up, sort of. I left most of the tarnish on the legss and more ornate parts, which gives it a beautiful contrast of shiny against the dull parts. In the end paring down my choices really makes it work.
It’s a good thing that I can “eyeball a thing” because I didn’t consider measuring. Nevertheless, it’s a perfect fit–tight enough that I don’t have to glue the two pieces together, so cleaning will be much easier and I can change the base. How’s that for eyeballing a thing? (I like that phrase!)
