Christmas Bulb Trees

I've gotten a ton of compliments and questions about the Christmas bulb trees I made for our ward party decor.  It was a genius idea I got from Pinterest and it was so easy.  The process was simple.

It went from this...

...to this...

... to this...

... to this.

I started with a good variety of colors and sizes of unbreakable (plastic) bulbs from Taipan Trading and some small wooden dowels.  My young women would be making these at our activity Tuesday night so I had to do a little prep work so we could get everything done.  I made my selection of bulbs for each tree and put each "tree" in it's own bag.  (I almost wrote on each bulb so they would know the order I intended the bulbs to go in, but I tried my best to allow them some creative freedom.  I'm not always the best at letting go of control.)  Then I removed all the "hanger" things from the one end of the bulb and drilled a hole the same size as the dowel I was using.  Two holes per bulb except for the top one.  Once each tree's bulbs were drilled I put them all back into their bags and tied the dowel to it so the girls would have a nice little kit and it could all go quickly and smoothly.  At that point you just slide the bulbs onto the dowel in the order you want them.  Some fit super snug so we had to twist them down the dowel into place.  After that you just tie a ribbon between the bulbs and place them in their holder.  Colby made me little wood blocks that they could stand in.  I would have loved to have the gorgeous metal stands I saw in the inspiration photo on Pinterest, but I had a rapidly approaching deadline and little money.  For the sake of time I did not paint the bases, but would like to in the future.

It was such an easy little project and it added a fun touch of color and whimsy to the decor.  I now have a little colorful forest in my house too.

P.S.  This project got my house covered in glitter!  I only used a few glittered bulbs, but that was enough to get that stuff everywhere.  A couple days later I was still finding it on all of our faces.  Haha.