Christmas Trees Redefined

We choose not to have a traditional Christmas tree in our home. A cut tree is kind of depressing, watching it die, and the container for a live tree ends up being a "litter box" for our cats. Also, we don't have to worry about our dogs knocking decorations off of the tree with their tails.

Instead, we go "green" by not having a green tree. We've repurposed two jewelry hangers into adorable and classy "trees," saving both the environment and money!










This jewelry tree, purchased from IKEA holds my long necklaces throughout the year, then with the addition of LED microlights (purchased from Target), some reusable silver starry garland, and our smallest ornaments, we have a wonderful wintry white tree, surrounded by an angel, polar bear, and Christmas dog. Cost: $5 for reusable tree, $6 for one set of LED microlights (needs 4 AA batteries), various for ornaments and garland.

















This classy chrome jewelry hanger, purchased from Container Store usually holds a fun collection of bottle openers and key chains. (I'll post a pic after the holidays.) The hanger's sleek design inspired me to buy one set of small tree ball ornaments (from Target) and arrange them on the hanger and fill the bottom with leftovers.

















I added a "glitter ball" I bought last year for a craft project from Hobby Lobby to the center for extra shine. Cost: $20 for the hanger, $6 for the ornaments, nothing for the glitter ball.






















I've seen at stores this year metal tree shapes with hooks for ornaments. They're cute, but I would rather buy something I can use all year round.

Maybe you need a larger tree, one to put presents around? Here's a clever use for a found object!

This six-foot chrome clothing rack is usually found in a department store. From January to November, it holds clothes in my closet, but in December it's transformed!

By wrapping white wire lights around it and adding our ornaments and a tree topper, we have a sturdy, dead-needle-free Christmas tree. Our tree skirt fit neatly around it and we have the perfect place for Santa to leave us presents. The ornaments are hung on the small hanger balls evenly-spaced around the rack, er, tree. We can see all of our ornaments from every angle.











Since the "tree" is meant to hold many heavy shirts or trousers, we don't worry about the ornaments' weight. The rack is tall enough to keep doggie tails and reaching cats away from most, if not all, of the ornaments. Cost: $0 - found rack, previously purchased ornaments, light, and tree skirt.




















We here at Totem Media, L.C. wish you and yours the brightest, merriest, and safest of holidays!

Mystery Turkey Tracks Snow onto Website

Here is the new desktop calendar for December 2008. I incorporated three personal photos into this image.

The first is the calendar background. It is a early spring 2007 photo of Spearfish Canyon in the Black Hills, South Dakota. If you look closely, you can see there still was quite a bit of snow on the ground!

The second is the main background image. I took a photo of turkey tracks December 2007, also in the Black Hills.

The third photo is the red star. It is the tree topper on my parents' Christmas tree. It is not the tree topper we had when I was growing up. As a child, our tree topper was a finial style, similar in shape to the first photo on this webpage, except the point didn't twist and we didn't have people or snowmen.

I used two text treatments. First, on "Winter Wonderland," I removed the fill color and using an inner shadow and outer glow, simulating a depression in the snow, like the turkey tracks. It isn't exact because I had already treated the text with some rough shading and erasing. Second, on "December 2008," I also removed the fill, and added a stroke around the letters. It felt too crisp, and I wanted to have a hand-stamped effect, so I added a very slight motion blur.

If you would like to use this wallpaper on your computer, you may do so. Click on the photo to open a full-size version. This wallpaper is for personal use only. Please do not remove the copyright notice.