Beautiful Burlap & Tree Trimmings

Last week one of my friends got a fresh live tree. She was telling a bunch of us about it and mentioned that they had trimmed a ton off the bottom of the tree, so if anyone wanted any fresh branches to let her know. I was first in line. We have a fake tree at home, which I like, and I really like not having all the hassles that come with a live tree, but I really miss that fresh scent. This was the perfect opportunity for me to have my cake and eat it too.

She brought over a garbage bag full of tree trimmings, and I pulled out every container that could possibly hold them. Jayce even helped a little.

The long branches went in tall vases, the medium branches in medium vases. The stuffable pieces went in stuffable containers, the curved branches in bowls, and the flat pieces in flat things. I kept the tiny clippings and threw those into a bowl as well.

Then I spread the clippings, and that fresh scent, all around the house.

Even though I like minimalistic decor, some of the containers seemed a little plain, so I went to what have become my go-to items: twine, berries, and burlap. But even this wasn’t quite enough, so I decided to spruce up my burlap with a little paint. I had a foam stamp from a project that I started and never finished months ago, and pulled that out with some fabric paint. I wasn’t sure how it would work on the burlap, but it was great: a good balance of classy and kind of worn-looking. I stamped a pattern on the burlap, and then flipped it over and blindly cut out pieces in the shapes that I wanted, so that the placement of the design would be a little bit random. Then I wrapped the scraps around the containers.

I put the fabric paint onto an old Cool Whip lid, which worked as a perfect stamp pad. This ended up being even more helpful than I had originally planned when naptime ended a little earlier than I’d expected and I wasn’t quite finished. I just put the stamp inside and closed the top to keep everything from drying up, and I picked up right where I left off a little later.

I liked the pattern so much that I stamped it onto this table runner that I made, and used the scraps on a few shelves to give them a little something extra.

I am working on a few other things but they are/might be Christmas presents, so I will post them later. One of them involves this little pile of wood which I can’t wait to dive into, as soon as I finish addressing Christmas cards. Or maybe a little before.

I’m linking up to A Soft Place to Land, Today’s Creative Blog, Show and Tell, Somewhat Simple, Shabby Chic, Thrifty Thursday, Frugal Friday and Creative Cats.