Condo Blues

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

8 Plastic Free Artificial Christmas Trees

PhotobucketChristmas ornaments are my favorite part of the holiday! Every ornament on our tree tells a story. Some are handmade; others commemorate a trip or event. I always find myself staring at that tree of memories (not at the gifts under it) throughout the holiday season. It makes me smile.

Unfortunately, the yearly Green Christmas Tree Controversy does not make me smile. It makes me surly because it's a no win argument largely based on preference.


  • Real trees are a fire hazard dripping in pesticides that might be better served living outside and photosynthesizing their little hearts out. 
  • Fake trees can contain PVC and will never break down if chucked in a landfill. 

When it comes right down to it; neither a real tree nor a fake reusable tree is green because you are adding one more object that does not serve any real practical purpose to your house. That's how Grinchy this "controversy" makes me because one of my favorite parts of the holiday is our sentimental Christmas ornament collection.

While both types of trees have their good points and bad points, I don’t think having either type of Christmas tree in your house is like gathering around glowing plutonium. Although to be on the safe side, do not lick either type of Christmas tree cause, you know, possible pesticides or PVC.

To be even more truthy with you, I’m Team Fake Tree. I favor reusables over disposables, both Blitzkrieg and I have pollen allergies that make a real tree not so fun for us, and a fake tree allows me to break with Danish tradition and put my tree up right after Thanksgiving instead of on Christmas Eve.  

I realize many of you like the reusable aspect of an artificial Christmas tree but hate the thought of bringing new plastic into your home. I can help you out with that. I did untold hours of looking at Christmas decorations because I enjoy looking at Christmas decorations hard, hands on research to find a slew of  plastic free Christmas trees.
 
8 Plastic Free Reusable Christmas Trees 

Genuine Aluminum Christmas Tree - My little retro loving heart wants an aluminum Christmas tree like the one both sets of my grandparents had so bad. The only problem is you cannot put lights on it. If you do and there’s a short in your lights, the metal tree conducts electricity – zap! You just electrocuted Santa and shot straight to the top of The Naughty List.


 

Silver Iced Novelty Decorative Artificial Christmas Twig Tree - This tree might be more your speed if the thought of sorting and assembling all of the branches of a large aluminum tree crumbles your cookies, which is another reason why I don't have an aluminum Christmas tree. Boo.

 


This White Twig Christmas Tree - works well if the traditional pine tree isn’t your thing while still allowing you to hang ornaments from its metal branches.



Pewter Decorative Ornament Display Tree - screams Solstice to me I don’t know why. Maybe because it resembles the bare tree in my front yard.


 


Ornament Display Tree - allows you to put the focus on the ornaments and not the tree. I can see using one to display nothing but cherished kid created ornaments.
 




This 7 foot Gold Metal Tree - may be more your style if you want a full size ornament stand type of tree over the table top model.


Feather Tree and Stand If metal isn’t your thing, how about feathers?! For a more old timey Christmas you can’t beat this hand wrapped goose feather tree and iron tree stand. This tree begs for homemade ornaments!


If a Christmas tree and a Truffala tree had a baby it would be the Kurt S. Adler 4-Foot Shaggy Tree – Bring a little retro whimsy to your celebration with this funky bright green metallic tree. This kooky guy is my favorite of the bunch!



 

Once you made your choice, extend the life of your Christmas tree by:
  • Shop mindfully for your preferred type of Christmas tree.
  • Take care of it for as long as it is in your possession.
  • Dispose of it mindfully
What type of tree do you have? Real or fake?

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Sunday, December 4, 2011

I Organized My Office!

Clutter makes me cranky. Which made it easy to pick a project when Apartment Guide asked me to participate in their Holiday Home Organization Blogger Challenge.  I was sitting at it.

 Before: Clutter Central!

Apartment Guide gave me a budget of $150 dollars for my project. I spent a chunk of the budget on repainting and repairing a thrift store wood filing cabinet to replace the flimsy little guy in the office. Good call on that one because the drawer front snapped off when I opened the drawer on the old cabinet to clean it out for the last time. I can't tell you how happy I was when I chucked that baby into the city recycling bin!

After: Clean and Organized!

Thursday, December 1, 2011

More Martha Stewart Christmas Paint Crafts Than I Can Count!

Hello friends! Have I got a treat for you!

Are you ready for a little holiday craft eye candy? Eye candy is the best type of candy, because it's nonfatting and won't rot your teeth. 

Santa (in the form of the UPS driver) delivered a slew of Martha Stewart craft paint, stencils, and supplies to  a bunch of my crafty and DIY bloggy friends too! I used my supplies to make a stenciled snowflake bottlecap bracelet. 

 

We've been Facebooking, Tweeting, Pinning, and sharing our crafty holiday projects amongst ourselves. Then Rhonda, one of the gals at Dollar Store Crafts gets smart and generous and creates a linky of our projects so we can share them with you!

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Does Twitter Hate Green Moms?

Twitter suspended the Shorty Award winning @Greenmoms Carnival Twitter account. We don’t know why and Twitter isn’t telling. Will you help @Greenmoms and our over 70,000 followers get our Twitter account reinstated?

A Little Background on @Greenmoms on Twitter and The Green Moms Carnival

In 2008, Lynn of  Organic Mania gathered a diverse group of green bloggers and suggested we host a monthly blog carnival on a specific green topic like the Green Pet Blog Carnival I hosted on Condo Blues in October for Adopt a Shelter Dog Month.

Not every member of The Green Moms Carnival has the same green focus or way we do things and we like that way! Some of us (like me) are not Moms to humans. However, what we all have in common is trying to live the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (and in my case, Remake) way the best we know how and are eager to share our hits and our misses with all of you.

@condoblues, @greentalk, @mindfulmomma, @greenmom, @crunchygoddess, @fakeplasticfish
Lisa from Condo Blues, Anna from GreenTalk, Miceala from Mindful Momma, Sommer from Green and Clean Mom, Amy from Crunchy Domestic Goddess, and Beth of Fake Plastic Fish.
Photo courtesy of Crunchy Domestic Godddess.


Monday, November 28, 2011

Handy Ma’am Apron

I love spending quality time with my tools. I don’t always love being covered from head to toe in sawdust from those tools. If only there were a way to prevent that.

They have something for that. It’s called an apron.

I made this!

Friday, November 25, 2011

6 Reusable Christmas Countdown Advent Calendars

As I eagerly endured the days before Christmas as a kid, I wanted mark off the days on a Christmas countdown Advent calendar.

My mother never went for it.

Now I understand why. Most advent calendars reveal candy or a trinket each day the child crosses a date off the calendar. In a household with more than one kid, one Advent calendar can lead to squabbling.



One solution is to buy one countdown calendar for each kid. However, that doubles the amount of work filling it and the kids get more trinkets and candy during one of already gift and treat laden times of the year. I'm not anti- extra candy treats. I'm anti - kids on a month long sugar high and driving everyone else  crazy extra extra candy treats. 80/20 Rule, remember?

My solution is use an Advent calendar that focuses on the countdown instead of prizes each day.  I like these countdown calendars better because you can reuse them year after year with little effort.

6 Reusable Christmas Countdown Advent Calendars Your Kids Won’t Fight Over