The Found Tree
Last week I had a brilliant beyond brilliant idea. I would create a “found” Christmas tree, completely decorated with ornaments made from items found around my apartment. Brilliant idea… in theory.
In reality, there just aren’t enough hours in the day! I managed to get through my jewelry box before having to end my search. But… if I say so myself, I did a pretty good job salvaging earrings (for which I’d lost the match) and necklaces (which had fallen apart), repurposing them into ornaments by adding leftover twine and ribbons.
Man, I loved these earrings! My cousin and I had gone see an old Edie Sedgwick film in Long Island City and while walking from the subway, the other one just fell out of my ear. We traced our steps trying to find it, to no avail…
This was one of the earrings that I wore with my formal dress in the Miss Ashbrook High School pageant junior year. (OK, it’s true, but I’m from the south, most EVERYONE’s in a pageant at some point in their lives!)
When my friend T moved to the UK last year, I was the lucky recipient of all kinds of things they didn’t want to take with; dishes, candles, alcohol… and this super cool earring, the match for which I promptly (sadly) lost.
This was part of a gorgeous necklace by Turq Jewelry which was a graduation gift from the ladies at Family Heirlooms, the antiques store I worked at during college.
Sigh. These were not the nicest pieces of jewelry I’ve ever owned. They’re not even the most sentimental. But, I certainly attached memories to them over the years, didn’t I? I’m so glad to have figured out a way to use them instead of (eventually) throwing them out.
I LOVE this idea. My jewelry box is full of lonely earrings that I can’t bear to throw away yet either. Sometimes I wear them as mismatched pairs.
When Michael and I first moved into our townhouse, we had a Christmas tree with very few ornaments. Your attachment to earrings reminds me of my attachment to all things stationery, including the holiday cards that fly in every year. Taking a page from my Mom’s book, I cut out the most interesting winter/holiday scenes from the cards, added some ribbon, and viola! Something to put on our sadly empty tree.
That’s a great idea, Molly, thanks! Lily created a Christmas tree filled with photos of friends that’s similar to your card idea – it turned out quite beautiful! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=34736875&id=26306282
These are all great ideas — makes for a very sentimental tree. In addition, my friend Robin was particularly gifted at taking things like feathers or clumps of berries or old artificial flowers and using them in the Christmas tree as “fillers”. They fill gaps to make the tree look fuller while allowing you to focus on the other unique ornaments.