A handmade eco friendly Christmas tree for a greener Christmas


It's only November but most shopping malls already have their Christmas decorations up. Everywhere you go, there are promotion counters lining up on the terrace between shops, and promoters jumping at you trying to flog you cosmetics or spray some new "Christmas party" fragrances at you. I try very hard to decline nicely every time, but all I want to do is to walk through that walkway in peace, why can't I even do that? These people whom I call commodity owners, tend to think that the best way to sell their products is by having heavily-made-up promoters harassing us all the time. And they thought by doing so will get us all to buy!

Anyway, we can't have Christmas without a Christmas tree. People are discussing which tree to buy, a real one or a plastic one? What's the theme of the tree this year, green or gold, angels or baubles? How many boxes of tree decoration? Should there be a star or a Barbie angel on the tree top? Nope I can't afford that, and certainly won't want that either.

Getting a tree ready for Christmas is always a heart-warming one (if you do it with pure effort). But at times like this, what's more important is how ethical and eco-friendly my tree is. Real tree is nice, but chopping it down just for the season then discard it afterwards; although you can argue that they planted those trees just for this commercial purpose, I can't help but ask: what's the point?

So I've decided that I will have a tree this year, but I will MAKE one myself. After 3 fun-filled days, my humble little Christmas tree is finally up and warming the house in the night.

Material used for making the tree:

Base - wok packaging box wrapped in used kitchen foil
Trunk - wok packaging box
Tree - One-sided printed A3 paper pasted together with homemade corn starch glue
Baubles - bits & pieces of old Christmas cards, colour cards decorated with old craft pens, and foil cups
Star - used card wrapped in used kitchen foil
Angle lights - hand-me-down from a friend
Pressies behind the tree - wrapped in recycled gift wrapper saved from previous Christmases

The only thing bought new is the red ribbon that can be reused over and over again.

The whole point of this Christmas project is to minimise productivity and consumption during festive season, and to moderate unnecessary spending and wastage. I only spent less than £5 to have a pretty (though not entirely symmetrical) Christmas tree, and cleared some old clutter. What can be better than that?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What can we do with used CDs and DVDs?

Image
Dear readers, this blog will no longer be updated.  All contents will be moved to: upcycleliving.blogspot.com Please update your link, and we hope to see you again soon  😊 I always make a point to buy rewritable CDs so that I can reduce the unnecessary disposal. However, I can't stop others from handing me non-rewritable discs. So I still find myself collecting unwanted, damaged, or outdated discs over the years. I refuse to throw them into the bin because they take years to decompose in landfill, not to mention the amount of toxin released during the process. So I kept holding on to them and have no idea what to do with them. We decided to use them as coasters and then found out that the shiny layer started peeling after a while. So I peeled the layer off and completely and cleaned them up. Now they are all transparent, and the problem is, sometimes we just can't see them! Then I thought it would be better to give them some colours to make them more visible...
Read more

What to do with damp stained shirt

Image
Dear readers, this blog will no longer be updated.  All contents will be moved to: upcycleliving.blogspot.com Please update your link, and we hope to see you again soon  😊 This cushion cover is made from one of my husband's old shirts, which unfortunately had been damp stained on the collar due to the highly humid weather. We can't give it away to the charity and the material is not suitable for cleaning. I was meant to upcycle it into a wrap dress but was too lazy to do so. Whilst I was staring into the buttons the idea just came to me. It was so simple: Just lay the shirt flat, buttoned, turned inside out. Mark out the square (whatever size fits your cushion) where the button panel will fall in the middle. Secure with pins or quick stitches, cut the excess material out and sew it all around. (I did it by hand as I don't have a sewing machine) Unbutton and turn inside out. Now you have a cushion cover with ready button fastening. We probably w...
Read more

Too many old receipts and "sold" stickers

Image
We probably can't go a week without buying something. Some of us try to reduce consumption, reduce the use of plastic bags, use BYO containers, go to the nearest shops whenever we can, etc; but the issuing of receipts seems to be a mandatory for all the major shops and malls. No matter how hard I try to squeeze as many items into one purchase, I still end up with way too many receipts. What's worse is: you get 2 sets of receipts when you use a credit card, and the thermal receipts are apparently not recyclable! Being a stubborn cow that I am, I refuse to throw any away as long as they still have a blank side on them - thermal receipt or not. I've been using them as note pads, to take phone messages (not that we had a lot), and write my shopping lists on, before I put them into the recycling bag for paper. Along with the compulsory receipts, these supermarkets and department stores also make sure that they paste a "Sold" sticker onto every bag (or every item i...
Read more