Virtual Advent Calendar Day 18: Bottle Brush Christmas Trees

7 Days Left Until Christmas!

The bottlebrush Christmas tree.  A proud tradition in retro crafting.

Day 17's miniature village is surrounded by a forest of bottlebrush trees.

Today's retro craft comes from the 1961 book "A Second Treasury of Christmas Decorations" by Beth Hemingway.

Plate 45 at top was created by Mr.s Joe T. Mizzell, Jr.

Let's get started.

Materials Needed:

• Bottlebrush trees
• Spray paint 
• Beads, trims and mini-ornaments
• Glue gun

Instructions:

Step 1:  Find bottlebrush trees.  For me, this was the single hardest part of this craft.  I finally found them at a craft store.  You might want to try a hobby store that sells train sets or miniatures.

The elusive bottlebrush tree.

Step 2:  Spray paint the tree.  I used pink, green and blue.  Make sure your tree is thoroughly covered with the color you are using.  Once dry, grab a can of silver metallic spray paint and go over the trees very lightly to give them a little sparkle.

You can see the silvery sparkle on this blue version of the tree.

 Step 3:  Get out your ornaments and your glue gun.  I used glass pearl beads, gold mini-ornaments, silvertone beads, and some colorful striped glass beads.  For garland, I used plastic pearl trim.  Wrap the garland around the tree and glue each end.  Give each bead a glob of glue and stick them on the tree.  

Pink is a classic retro color.

You've now got your own beautiful bottlebrush tree.

Striped glass beads look like candy.

Day 19 is next.  Can you believe we are getting so close?  See you tomorrow!