A Little Bottle Brush Tree Crazy!

Do you ever find reason to laugh at yourself?  I sure do.  This month I've laughed at myself on two occasions-- laughed loudly-- almost uncontrollably!  :-)  One of these occasions has to do with my little obsession with bottle brush trees.

It all started with Pinterest--waaaaayyyy too many waaaayyy cute things made with mini bottle brush trees---bottle brush trees under glasses, bottle brush trees in salt shakers, bottle brush trees dyed pink... you get the idea.  I knew I had a bag of green trees from last year, but couldn't find them, and they were the wrong color anyway.  In search at Michael's,  I discovered these small packs of ivory trees--the preferred color:
 

 So I bought three.  And used them all!  That's when I panicked!  Had to have more.  So I called all the local Michael's--sold out.  YIKES!  Would I actually have to wait until NEXT Christmas to make all those cute creations swirling in my head???? 

Then I discovered on PINTEREST that you could bleach the green trees.  That made me look hard for my trees, and lo and behold, I finally found them--under a pile of old books and Christmas tree garland in a box in a corner of my garage!  Hurray!   I couldn't wait to start bleaching.  

One pinner's instruction was to put the trees in bleach and then in vinegar to stop the reaction.  Eagerly I put on two right-handed rubber gloves (all I could find), got tubs ready, and began the process in the kitchen.  What a smell!  (My husband moved me out to the garage.)  I soon got excited!  The green trees were becoming ivory before my very eyes!  But they were also turning a little dark--especially in the center...

Well, you're probably crafty and very ahead of me, and you probably guessed why!  Vinegar rusts metal!  Doh!  I was not happy.  These trees didn't look elegant--they looked very primitive.  Now I had no true ivory trees and fewer green trees!  My heart started beating fast--a near panic attack coming on.  How would I possibly have enough now to make gifts for everyone? Could I dye these back to green and hide the rust?  I tried a few more using only bleach and was please with the result.  Before bleaching my entire stash, I used a few green ones in vignettes, and decided green with snow was kinda nice.  Now I didn't want to use up all my green trees!  What to do?  

  Poor hubby...every time afterward that we went out together I asked to stop by Michael's or JoAnn's to look for trees.  I finally found a bag for 60% off.  The stash was growing.  Still wasn't sure I had enough.

 Then a few mornings later, as I was feeding my addiction to daily deal craft sites, I found trees on The Plaid Barn.  Hurray!  I ordered 3 bunches--twelve altogether.  Aaaaaaahhhh.... that ought to be enough, I thought.





and they bleached really well:







                    





I had quite a few trees at this point:



 Then about a week afterward, hubby and I stopped after brunch at a nearby thrift shop.  Guess what I found??????  A whole bag of green trees for $4.00!   So I HAD to buy them!  You can believe I walked very sheepishly out to the car where hubby was waiting.


 
















My collection was quite large now. 

And just to complete my obsession, I bleached a couple of large ivory trees that had gold glitter and terrible fake balls.  Before I knew it, I had a box full of trees and I just had to laugh and laugh.  Do you think I have enough to work with now?  :-)