Icicles on My (Inside the) House Tree

I know, it sounds kind of strange, right? Referring to my House Tree, so let me explain.

I stumbled across an image once, this was quite awhile ago, of a beautiful tree that someone had made to cover a support pillar in the middle of the room. I think it was made from paper mache, but picture something far more beautiful than the stuff we worked with as children. Anyway, I thought, I need a house tree too! I wanted something a little more portable and I was on the look out for the structure I had in mind to make my own paper mache house tree. Before that could happen, mother nature gave me the perfect little branches to create a house tree. I had an old enameled French flower bucket, and using plaster of paris, I securely set the branches in the base. Voila, House Tree. My idea was to use it as a display for pretty little collections of one type of item. Some of my past displays include old antique keys, curly birds (birds with curly feathers or long curly tails) and hanging tea light holders. Last year sometime, in one of my favorite catalogs, I saw some beautiful quartz crystals that had been made into hanging ornaments. They were sort of pricey, and I thought, I bet I can make some of those myself. So the idea of the icicle collection had it's germination. Being a big fan of icicles I had already made or collected a few, so I had a nice start. Here's how I work when putting these collections together, I gather the items I have that obviously fit into the category, and figure out how to hang them. But then, over the course of a few days, other, not so obvious items that fit the collection will come to mind and I add those too. It's a really enjoyable process, I'll stop, add an object, and go on about my work. Or sometimes it's just about looking at the collection as a whole and deciding where things can be better placed or maybe removing something that really doesn't fit after all. With that wordy explanation/introduction, here are pictures of the House Tree all decked out in icicles, it's my favorite color, shiny! (click on any of the photos to enlarge)

(L)The tree with full branches (R) One of the crystal icicles next to a wire icicle


The quartz crystal and lead crystal garlands


The long dangling icicle is actually a rhinestone necklace of my mums, I added a tear drop lead crystal


On the left is another of my wire icicles and one of my most favorite is on the right, a stunning aurora borealis necklace, more of Mum's bling from glamorous days of yore!

If you would like to make your own quartz crystal garland/ornaments, it's simple. I just used E6000, my favorite go to adhesive for jewelry design, to attach little silver rings to the crystals. Once dry, they're ready to hang individually or as I have, as a garland.

Have a wonderful, sparkling weekend! Blessings Friends!
Melissa