DIY Christmas Ornament from Tissue Boxes: Day 6 of 12

Today's featured Christmas ornament is a simple one indeed and great for kids and adults alike.  Check out these Ornaments Made From Tissue Boxes:

Tissue boxes have some the most fun and even beautiful packaging.  I use them in my jewelry creations quite regularly but there's always plenty of these empty boxes laying around.  So why not add a little glitter and hang it on the tree?

Don't forget to share this project for your chance to win all of the ornaments that are part of the Twelve Days of Upcycled Christmas Ornaments. Here is today's Rafflecopter:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Don't forget to check out all of the previous ornaments that we've made:

Aluminum Can Ball Ornaments
T-shirt Yarn Candy Canes
Shabby Chic Denim Dove
Felted Sweater Ball Ornament
Paper Towel Roll Flowers

DIY Soda Bottle Snowflake Ornaments

This is a fun project for you AND the kids and it's a great way to reuse a couple of items that would have otherwise ended up in the trash or recycle bin.  Here's what we're going for:

And here's my latest YouTube video to show you how to do it.

You can cut the plastic soda bottles into any shape your heart desires but if you're set on the snowflakes, you can pick them up in my Etsy shop.

A Upcycled Tabletop Christmas Tree

Need a few tabletop decorations for the holidays...or something to keep the kids busy (with a little adult help)?  This is a pretty inexpensive and environmentally friendly way to accomplish both of those things. The only thing I needed to purchase was a dowel.

Here's what you'll need to assemble this tabletop tree

1.  Magazine pages in Christmas colors or black and white or anything that works for you.  I was gifted a Paula Deen Christmas edition magazine that had several pages that looked like wrapping paper so I used those along with a couple of sheets that had pictures of Christmas trees
2.  A drill with a 1/4" drill bit
3.  A 1/4" dowel, cut to the height you'd like your tree (I bought mine pre-cut)
4.  A larger plastic lid, I'm using one from a 20 pound jug of cat litter.
5.  And a few basics; scissors, hole punch and a glue gun

To get started, you'll need to assemble the base.  To make sure that your drill doesn't slip off center in the next step, use a hammer and nail to punch a starter hole in your plastic lid.  Now, use that hole as a guide to drill your hole.

Insert your dowel into the lid, set it on a flat surface and make sure your lid and the dowel all touch the surface.  Now add a bunch of hot glue all around the dowel, on the under side of the lid, to keep it in place.  Quickly place the base back on a flat surface and be sure the dowel is straight before the glue dries. 

 

Now you can start building your tree.  Cut your magazines pages along the longest length of the page into 2" strips, bring the two ends of one strip together and punch a hole.

Slide it - gently, it will be a snug fit - onto the dowel to the point were the "bough" just touches your work surface.

Continue to add strips to the dowel and space them out until you have the fullness that appeals to you and then add a bead of glue around the dowel both on top of and beneath the boughs

Now start on the second row.  You'll want to snip off about 3/4" from both ends of the strips that you use in this row, so bring the ends together as you did above and snip at 3/4".  Then punch a hole and slide it on to the dowel just the place where the bough touches the first row.

You'll add another layer that is the same length as the second row.  Then for rows 4-5 you'll snip about 1 1/4" off the ends and for the sixth row, slightly more that an inch and a half.  Of course, you can adjust these as you like.  Once you get to the top of the dowel, you can finish the top off with a holiday decoration or a vintage wooden button as I did below.
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Make a few in different sizes and deck those halls!

DIY Cinnamon Pinecones

I took this picture more than a month ago in my local craft store...long before Halloween:

I'm pretty sure the price tag said $6 for these two gigantic cinnamon scented pinecones.  While I don't have pinecones that big in my neighborhood, I figured I could do something just as nice and better for the environment at home.

Pinecones are found in nature so how bad can they for the environment, right?  Compared to other manufactured holiday decorations probably not too bad.  But if you consider the excess netting, paper price tags, artificial scents and the pollution caused transporting the pinecones from one person's backyard to store shelves, wouldn't you prefer to head outside and collect your own while you enjoy the beautiful Autumn weather?

All you need are some pinecones, a plastic bag and cinnamon essential oil (you won't need a jug of it as in the picture, common jars come in 1 and 3 ounce sizes)

Place a few drops of essential oil down inside the pinecones, you can use a dropper or just pour some into a soft plastic container that you can squeeze to form a little spout. You can use your sniffer as a guide to how much oil to add, but just 3-4 drops per pinecone should do the trick.  You can always add more essential oils when the scent fades.  Then place them inside a plastic bag overnight to give the oils some time to absorb.

Now just place them amongst your garland or other holiday decorations

You can even just pile them into a bowl and place it anywhere you'd like to freshen your home.