The Prettiest Little Recycling Project!

Do you have a great many catalogs or old magazines around the house?  Are they piling up and you haven't put the recycling out yet?  Good.  You're going to be needing them to make some super cute trees!

I was recently gifted a Christmas book from my grandmother.  She knows I LOOOVE all things creative and handmade, so she always provides me with new inspiration.  This idea came from  Southern Living's 2011 Christmas book. 

As you can see by the cover there are MAANY scrumptious ways to celebrate Christmas involved in this little book!  There are recipes, decor and craft ideas.  But the one that grabbed me first, (probably because it seemed like the simplest thing in the world to do with littles running around...)  were the trees.

Here are a few of my 'naked' Christmas trees.  They are quite cute just as they are, but I decided to add little pretty things to mine.  See my can of spray paint there?  Shiny excitement in a can!  Oh, the things you can do with a little spray paint!

So go gather up your pile of catalogs and old magazines and put in a good movie.  Get a hot cuppa to keep nearby and start folding pages.  It's that easy!  You may find that your littles will want to hop right in and fold along with you.  And that is just great because you will have more trees to play with!  And their little hands will be very busy for a period of time actually making something. 

I liked to use books of various sizes.  I love the tall trees, but the shorter ones are so cute and fat.  They were made using some of those smaller cooking/recipe magazines.  I found that if you fold two books of the same size and then put them together you will have a much nicer, rounder tree.  Otherwise, you may have a 'flat' side on the back.  Of course, that's ok too since some will sit flat against a wall on a mantel. 

We took our trees outside and gave them a little spray.  Then we arranged the crochet trimmies and buttons that we wanted to use for our decorations while the trees dried.

The Button Selection Process was of extreme importance here.  The whole jar had to be dumped to get a proper look-see at what was in there so we could collect up all the best ones!  And did you know how well and how fast buttons go sliding across hardwood floors?  Amazzzzzing! 

Look at that CUTE little FAMILY of TREES!!!  Are they not adorable?!  Are they not the CUTEST little trees ever?!  I mean especially since they are a virtually free craft idea using Stuff On Hand and the gazillion books that come in the mail. 

I had fun crocheting different colors of trims for these little guys.  I started out thinking the traditional colors would be best... gold, white, red.  But somehow a bit of pink got in there. 

Then that led to the pink and green tree, which I LOOOVE.  Then it became more fun to find buttons that were flowers or butterflies since we were gettin' kinda girly...

This tree in the center has the button garland.  I strung lots of buttons (especially red and shiny ones) onto my yarn and as I crocheted a chain I slipped  buttons up and hooked around them.  I added a button after every eight chains.

So as of yesterday we were up to 46 catalogs here in the Hearthroom.  I'm sure they're not done coming yet, so I'll probably go make a few more button garlands and crochet doo-dads to dress up a few more trees.  Two of these little trees have found new homes, so I'll be needing to add to the family.

If you celebrate Thanksgiving - I hope you had a Wonderful one.

We have so much to be thankful for here in the Hearthroom.

xo