One of the few things I did for Christmas decorating this year was put out some bottle brush trees amongst some sheep on the pass through between the den and kitchen.
That’s how they looked until just a week or so ago. I was lazy. Didn’t put up the decora…… Oh, who am I kidding? I really left them out on purpose, considering them winter decorations with intentions to dye them for Easter. (Giggle, snort, giggle.) Whatever. Anyway, I did it! Completed the whole project. Bleached, dyed and arranged.
There are a gazillion tutorials on bleaching and dying bottle brush trees out there and I won’t repeat all that, but will tell you what I learned. Mainly, do not… DO NOT… leave them in the bleach too long.
I had a big tub filled with bleach, dumped all the trees in and left them. Left them at least 30 minutes, maybe even an hour. That much time wasn’t needed for the bleaching process and it took all the “sizing” out of the branches.
The comment was made that they looked like they’d been through a hurricane. Hrmph. I was hoping I’d be able to tell how easy it was to get them back to normal, but alas, that tale will ne’re be told. I couldn’t. I managed to shape them a bit better, but they’re still messy. I’m OK with the finished look, but our son’s coming up in a few days for a visit and I’m sure he’ll make fun of them. Oh, well.
I dyed them with food coloring. The color didn’t take evenly, but that’s OK, too. I tried adding vinegar to the food coloring first, and forgot to add it when I changed to a different color. It didn’t seem to make any difference, so I just left the vinegar out from then on.
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So where have I been the past few weeks? Oh, here, there, nowhere… Had a horrible sinus infection that had me down a few days. Spent a good bit of time getting the estate sale ready that was mentioned in the previous post. Had a couple of my daughter’s baby showers to attend. And frankly, didn’t have a thing in the world to blog about! But the big news of the moment is that our very first grand-darling will be born in the next couple of days! There will soon be a nursery decor post to go along with pictures of what will undoubtedly be the most beautiful child in the world! (Insert big, silly grin here.)
So see ya later gators!
Wanda
