Cluster Trees

For years, my friend kept telling me about these trees her mother made from ball ornaments and she kept saying she wanted to make one.  Finally, I said to her, just do it!  While out antique shopping, we were lucky enough to come across a vendor that had a huge box of ornaments for only $5.00 so she knew it was the right time to do it.

 

I just could not image what she was talking about and couldn't picture what she was going to do.  A few days after we got back from shopping, she sent me a photo of her ornament tree and I was immediately in love with it! 

 

This year, while at my house, we got out a box of ornaments I had and she made one for me!  I'm totally in love with it.  I made a tiny version from antique mercury glass balls and now need to find more to make her one.

 

 

One day, I came across a web site that had scanned Sears catalogs from way back when.  While going through a Wish Book from the early 60's, I found out these used to come in kits and are called Cluster Trees.

 

I never saw a kit before but recently, there were two on eBay, both by Shiny Brite! 

 

The first one sold for $40.00 plus shipping:

 

The second one is a BIN for $229.00!!!!!

 

 

Will be on the look out for these at the flea markets this year!!

 

Karen

More Christmas

New this year is my cardboard houses.  Since this photo was taken, I found the most awesome wagon made from cardboard and added it to the display, it's not shown in this photo though.

My cabinet with all the displays:

My gumball tree:

I made a complete forest of paper art trees atop candlestick holder (tree trunks) but just can't get a decent photo of it, here's just a small part of the forest on top of my vintage file cabinet:

My kitschy retro wall shelf with handmade ornament wreaths (next year, this will be loaded with kitschy Christmas stuff!!!)

My bathroom!

Love the Kleenex box I found at Dollar General.

A friend of mine gave me these Snowpeople so long ago!

Cellophane wreaths are a new addition this year.

For the first time since we got the shed, we decided to hang wreaths off the doors and I just love it!

Happy Holidays!

Karen

More Christmas projects

Today's projects are now finished!

Here are my supplies:

How cute are those jars?  I found them at the dollar store!  Decorative filler, bottle brush trees and miniature figures.

So easy to do!  Fill the jars with the filler and just stick things inside!  The jars are small so I only put two items in each one and kept with the snowman theme on the lids:

Now, if only I could take nice photos of them.

Then, I took some glass cubes I had in the basement and put some more filler in those and used things I had been picking up at antique shops.

Snowman with deer.

One more of the same:

And the second one I did:

My country house.  LOL!

I love how the glass distorts the items a bit.

Do you think I should bury the wood stands down into the filler? 

The blocks fit nicely into the cubes of my small cabinet.  Will get photos as soon as I get my wall tree in place.

Karen

Christmas Time!

I have SO much to do for the holidays and can't wait to get to them!

 

 

I've started lining things up on the dining room table.

 

For my tree, nothing but Jewelbrites and Paint by number ornaments.

 

I used the original shape, the ornament, from The Farm Chicks and shown in Country Living Magazine plus traced cookie cutters in the shapes of a candy cane and stocking.  I used a larger, duplicate paint by number and once traced, I cut them out.  I have brown and white baker's twine that I decided the white was too bright for a vintage tree, so I tea dyed the twine.

 

These items are for various projects.  I want to make some snow cubes with the trees and other items, a village and who knows what else.

 

The tree:

This is the tree I purchased at a flea market for $3.00!!!!!

I found a wonderful Jewelbrite tree topper!

A Jewelbrite tree!

This is my favorite PBN ornament!  My second one shows the house.

 

I still need a vintage tree skirt.  I sent a convo to an Etsy seller that has one I'm interested in but there's no dimensions in the description.  Would you agree that is something you would want to know?  Well, 24 hours later and still no answer and I see she has listed since I wrote, so I guess she doesn't care if she gets my money or not because I have decided, no answer, no sale.  It's too much money and photos can be deceiving, so I've made up my mind!

 

Karen

Christmas Decorating

I decided to go with handmade and trees this year.  I got lucky and found this old, vintage pom pom tinsel tree on eBay for a good price and just couldn't resist it.  It's the highlight of my decorations!

I couldn't believe my luck when I got my ornaments out to fill my bowl and realized I have these tiny glass mercury balls that went perfectly on my tree!

I hung the tree above my cabinet.

Top shelf is my vintage cheese container with Shiny Brite and Germany ornaments.  The wooden reindeer and trees on the next shelf, I made so long ago, they are vintage now!  The 3 Santas with a tree and the snowman are stitched on perforated paper.

The reindeer have twigs I found outside, another stitched tree on perforated paper and two of my book folding trees.

Sitting by the cabinet is a plastic canvas Santa door stop that was given to me ages ago.

My handmade wreaths from ornaments, the center one being my favorite:

I made this one with Shiny Brite ornaments and vintage decorations.  The twine you see between the wreaths is to clip Christmas cards on!

The dish on the left holds the clips for cards and another one of my folding book trees.  The candle has a bracelet made from plastic beads and says Noel on it.  I found the van at a thrift shop and tied a bottle brush tree to it.

This is pathetic.  LOL!  I've always wanted a decoration tree and I started back in Oct. stitching up ornaments, finally got the tree and just hate how they look on it.  I guess I should have done all uniform size ornaments.  Why do other peoples stuff always look so much better than when I try to do the same thing?

On the other hand, this is one I'm most proud of.  I stitched this up back in 1991.  

I had to relocate the hanging book folding to my paint by number wall so I could keep it out.  I don't have much room to decorate, so have to make due with what I have.

And part of my forest had to be moved too.

Christmas Paper Projects

Have a few items in my RunsWithScissors shop for Christmas and there's still time for custom orders!

Some paper beads!

Christmas plaid.

Christmas Scribbles

One orb left!  Ho Ho Ho!

Gift tags:

And some notepads!

Shop early if you want to place a custom order!