DIY Vintage Ornament Tree

The house is all decorated and I have this

gorgeous new vintage ornament tree

that I made with my craft group.  For

the moment it is here on my coffee table,

but hubby is very worried about children

breaking it.  I love it that he cares!!

We saw this one at Joanne's house last

year and all decided we wanted to make one.

Joanne said it would take around 100

ornaments.  Needless to say, I didn't

have more than one vintage ornament.

It was my aunt's and I didn't want to be

gluing it to a tree.  

Vintage style ornaments can be found at 

a lot of stores, but even half off, this tree

was going to be way too expensive.

So this summer I got on eBay - helps to

do it before anyone else is thinking about

Christmas and I big on lots of glass vintage

ornaments.  I am sure not all of them

are actually vintage, but I got them for

an average of $1.50 to $2.00 each, so

that made it possible for me to be able

to make the tree for a somewhat 

reasonable price.

We all gathered at Karen's house with

various trees to glue our ornaments on.

Notice Karen's in the background - it is

being placed in an urn and is a smaller

tree, so that makes it more reasonable.

My cone tree came from Home Goods

last year, on sale, but it was really large.

This is later in the evening.  Brenda's tree which

is in the front is the only one that got finished

that night.  I ran out of ornaments, if you can 

believe it.  Mine is the behemoth to the left.

We each placed our trees on a plate or platter

so that we could move them.  You would want

to do this, as you wouldn't want to be picking the

tree up by the ornaments.

This project requires a hot glue gun

and lots of glue, but it is really easy.

I got to work right away the next morning

after I ran to Hobby Lobby to get some

more small ornaments for the top.

The pink convertible is one I picked up.

Karen had given me the pink camper

that night.  I picked up another one

to replace it for her.  

I got two vintage pickle ornaments

in the lots I bought off of eBay.

The indented pink one at the top of the picture

are like ones my parents had.  I wonder who

ended up with our old ornaments.  Karen

had some of these indented ones, and

she told the story how she used to poke the

inside out, so she included one of those

broken ones on her tree.  She had

quite a few of her parent's and her in-law's

ornaments, which made her tree really special.

This vintage tree topper was found on

eBay too, but it reminds me of ornaments

that my parents had when I was growing up.

I was lucky to get so many fabulous

ornaments - this tree with a heart for a

base was one of my favorites.

I love the fire engine with Santa's hat

on it too, as my SIL went to fireman/paramedic

school.  

Santa on a rocking horse and one

on a motorcycle were real finds,

as well as this darling

 pink VW Bug.  

This was one of the funnest crafts we

have done.  Thank you Joanne for inspiring

and teaching us, and thank you Karen for hosting

at your place.  It isn't a cheap craft if you have

to start from scratch like I did, but if you have

lots of vintage glass ornaments around the

house, it could be practically free.

The best part was how my husband gasped

with delight when I walked through 

the door with it late that night.

Go visit Jann's to see her 

tree and post at

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