It’s the time of year when I used to go totally wild with holiday decorations.  Sadly, my enthusiasm for such things has suffered a significant drop off, and right at the time when I’m supposed to be creating magical traditions for my boy.  Perhaps this post will light a spark…

I believe that it was last year when an idea finally struck me, and I think that it’s good enough to share in cyber space.  Here’s what happened.  I wanted to come up with a way to countdown the days till Santa visits our humble abode.  My husband has a really sweet set of miniature tree ornaments which are Taiwanese knock-offs of these ones.  Knowing that he would appreciate creating a new tradition with some cherished ornaments from his youth, I decided that we needed a tree to hang them on day by day.  Knowing further that my husband appreciates thriftiness, and that if there’s anything that I posses in surplus it’s craft supplies, I set about figuring out how to make a tree from in-home materials.  And I did.  Honestly, it’s still a little rough around the edges, but it works for now and I’ll spruce it up in years to come.

In the meantime, I decided that if I could make a tree I could make a wreath.  I have a few wreath frames on hand from a wedding project that didn’t come to fruition and so I got busy.  I had stumbled upon a color combination with the wool roving at our local yarn shop that I wanted to see more of during the weeks leading up to Christmas.  So I made a bunch of balls and my wreath took shape.

Apart from being composed of things that I had on hand, I am especially fond of this technique for creating evergreen decorations because there is no plastic or other strange substance involved.  All natural craft materials are all better, if you ask me.  Both my tree and my wreath can use a bit of filling in, and I’ve still got plenty of yarn pieces left for that.  So much in fact that I’m thinking that a garland may be in my future.  For now though, it’s just a matter of pulling those ornaments out of the basement and hanging them up day by day.

Here are the step by step photos for making your own wooly evergreen.
If you are lucky enough to have some of these in home, they prove useful for all sorts of applications.  You’ll need some green yarn, scissors, and whatever form to which you plan to attach your yarn.

Wrapping your yarn around a few blocks and then removing the center two in order to make the cut is a speedy way to generate a large quantity of strings of a similar length.

Now it’s just a whole bunch of cow hitching until you have your desired fullness of foliage.

Here’s to a season of good cheer and merry making!