Bottle brushes are normally used for creating miniature trees because it has a shape of a pine trees and the way its bristles stick out creating a cylinder look, making it a perfect miniature tree for you Christmas decorations. It is common among train collectors to use bottle brush tree on their train tracks surrounding to make it look more realistic. Besides that, bottle brush trees are also suitable for Christmas decorations as displays on your mantel as well as centerpieces. This article will explain to you how to make your very own miniature Christmas trees, Christmas wreaths using a few craft supplies and bottle brushes.
What you need to do:
- White bottle brushes
- Wire cutters
- Styrofoam block
- Scissors
- Green spray paint
- Wine corks
- Utility knife
- Tinsel
- Felt stars
- Craft glue
- Wire wreath base with clips
- Holiday bow
- Metal snips
- Washer
- Spray flocking
Christmas Trees
Method:
- Firstly, you need to prepare your brushes by cutting the wire of the bottle brushes at least 1-inch below the end your actual brushes. This can be done by using wire cutters.
- Next, take a Styrofoam block and insert the cut ends into it enabling it to hold the brushes upright for doing your painting work easily.
- To have a pine tree shape out of your brushes, you have to trim and taper the bristles of the brushes. Make sure that you cut the bristles at the top much shorter than the rest and leave the bristles longer when you reach the bottom.
- Once finished, you can spray the brushes using a green spray paint or your own preferred color for creating a uniquely colored trees and wreaths. Then, leave the tree to dry thoroughly before displaying it as your decorations.
- For creating Christmas trees from your bottle brushes, you need to cut a small slit into the center of the narrow end of a wine cork by using your utility knife.
- After that, you have to insert the wire ends of your painted bottle brushes into the slit and once done, you are able to wrap tinsel around the Christmas tree and glue felt stars on top of the trees.
- In order to create Christmas wreath, you need to tuck the wire ends of your bottle brushes into your wreath’s clips, which you can find around the wreath base. Next thing to do is to clip four wire ends under each of the clip for you to have a full looking wreath.
- Then, you need to bend the brushes for shaping them up and also to cover any bare spots that you notice in the wreath.
- Finally, you can add more decoration for example by attaching a holiday bow to the wreath. This can be done by twisting the bow’s wire at its back and twist them around your wreath’s base. Make sure that it is secure and will not drop when you hang them. For holiday bow that does not come with wires, you just use craft glue and glue the holiday bow onto the wreath.
Additional Reading:
Christmas Cuties (8 Easy-to-Make Bottle Dolls, PD-5507)
