My neighbors had a small evergreen tree in their front yard that did not survive, so they dug it up and put it in the alley near their garbage cans for the men to take on trash day (yes, Darcie – this is you). The thing about this is – my kitchen window faces their garbage area and I end up seeing a lot of the things they throw away when I am doing my dishes. This puts me in the perfect position to review their castaways on a regular basis and develop possible ideas to rework them. Every week, the garbage men came and took everything else, but they would leave the dead tree. After observing this for about 3 weeks, I came to realize that I needed this sad tree for my Halloween decor and I went out in the alley and grabbed it. It was pretty creepy looking in its original state – I didn’t have to take it far to turn it into the Dead Halloween Tree that now sits in our home’s entryway and is making my kids pretty excited about Halloween…
From trash to treasure - our Dead Halloween Tree is getting positive reactions from our kids and their friends.
This is so easy to make - if you don't have access to a dead tree, you could use a branch instead.
An apple basket is reused as the base for this tree -- to add a splash of color, bits of leftover fabric and black decorative trim are hot glued to the rim. To stabilize the tree, I placed it in the basket and stuffed the surrounding area with crumpled newspaper. I topped it off with decorative moss.
A strand of orange lights and small plastic skeletons (sold by the bag at Halloween and party supply stores) hang from the branches.
This is the poor thing in its "before" state. It still had its root ball, so I stuck it in a bucket to get it upright for spraying.
It took about 5 coats of flat black spray paint to cover the entire tree. Once it was dry, I sawed off the root ball, placed it in my apple basket and started decorating. The total cost for this project was about $15.00 (spray paint, lights and skeletons).
BTW – Because of all of your helpful suggestions regarding my last post, I have decided to give that darn dress another try. Thanks!
Nancy
October 12, 2012 at 3:22 pm
Great idea – I drove by a neighbor’s house and they were “just” throwing out their Christmas wreath which will work equally well for my decorations – assuming paint acts like glue and will hold what few needles have made it to October.
camilla
October 12, 2012 at 4:21 pm
I think it should work – you could shake off a few loose ones before you start spraying. Great idea!