Celebrate Green Blog

by Lynn

Last winter, with my husband’s help-OK, OK, all I did was supervise, i.e. tell him what to do-we made a dowel Christmas tree. At the time I thought we could use it for any holiday, but of course, I forgot about most of them until last weekend when we were celebrating my two granddaughters’ birthdays.

I brought out the tree and a mass of pre-used items including:

• bottle caps
• silver foil
• pipe cleaners
• paper
• “jewels”
• wooden beads
• wire
• paperclips
• bolts

..and lots of other odds and ends.

I set everything on the table and the kids (and a few grownups), had a ball making ornaments for the tree.

Here’s the overall result:

And here are just a few of the ornaments:

Everyone had a ball! Even our grandson who isn’t usually into art projects, spent at least an hour hunched over his work and came up with, among other items, the skeleton above.

If you have a Halloween party coming up and you’re thinking about activities, consider something like this. You don’t have to make the tree. Just get a branch, put it in a bucket filled with rocks and start decorating!

Corey did a segment on the news here in Seattle, that included the Halloween tree. And I’m already thinking about repeating this activity for Thanksgiving!

If you have made something similar, we’d love to see pictures!

Lynn Colwell and Corey Colwell-Lipson are mother and daughter and authors of Celebrate Green! Creating Eco-Savvy Holidays, Celebrations and Traditions for the Whole Family, and founders of Green Halloween®.