How to Make a Repurposed New Year's Tree

Like many I'm happy to ring in the new year but sad to see all the holiday decorations come down so quickly; especially, the Christmas tree. Your Christmas tree doesn't have to be stored away just yet if you follow my lead below. This post is a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) craft project, which is based around a repurposed (recycled) item. We want to share with our population-we™readers that Earth Day should be commemorated every day of the year! For The Brown's: a recycled home project evokes something you already had around the house; were given specifically for repurposing; picked up thrifting or bought at a ReStore. To be classified as population-we™ repurposed project: one- or all- components should be recycled in the project. In this case, you'll see below we used items already on hand. Here's our post--two repurposed craft projects that will greet house guests this New Year.

Inspiration for Project:
In the past, we've hosted huge blow out New Year's Eve parties and had a lot of leftovers. So, instead of throwing away the decorations and party favors, we repurposed them to decorate our Christmas tree to celebrate the New Year. This year, I had two helpers and embarked on decorating two trees instead. First, a mini fake evergreen tree. We have two huge planters out front, which I change out for the season year-after-year, but one artificial pine tree snapped from the epic winds we get here in Elkhorn, Neb. So, instead of throwing it away we used it for this repurposed craft project. Second, we redecorated our 7-foot Christmas tree with repurposed New Year's decorations and party favors too. See how we used repurposed items to create two New Year's trees below.

Repurposed Components:

Party Favors.

Planter.

Fake Tree Without Ornaments.

  

Mini Fake Tree.

 




Mini Tree Step-by-Step Instructions:
Step 1: Pull the fake poinsettias out of the planter.
Step 2: Place the mini fake evergreen tree stem in the planter.
Step 3: Decorate with party decorations and favors.

Finished Mini New Year's Tree.

Big Tree Step-by-Step Instructions:
Step 1: Take the Christmas ornaments off the fake tree.
Step 2: Play concentration game described below.
Step 3: Decorate with party decorations and favors.

Finished 7-foot New Year's Tree.

Re-purpose Tip! 

Make it fun and enlist helpers.

You too can do this yourself. Every DIY project is better done with friends or family. In this case, I gave my two nieces, Brooke and Bridget, full reigns to decorate their very own mini New Year's Tree (see picture above). Also, I enlisted their help to take the ornaments off our 7-foot-Christmas tree. You know from our 12 days-of-ornaments post; The Brown's love Christmas ornaments. However, to make it fun and go faster--I made the project a concentration game. I'd show the girls a box and they both would walk around the tree looking for the ornament to match. Happy New Year and repurpose DIYing!

-population-we™ blog post by Becky Bohan Brown

© 2014 population-we, LLC 
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