So over the weekend Creed and I went and cut down a Christmas tree out of the mountains. It was quite the adventure! We were given the tag from Creed's boss, it was very nice of him! The tag was for a tree in Idaho...since neither of us had ever cut a tree from Idaho we had no idea where to go...the tag had maps attached of where you can but it wasn't very helpful. We eventually just picked an area and headed that way. So we drove over to Tremonton and drove up that way to Idaho! It was so nice to just spend sometime with my husband without a million things to do, very relaxing and fun! We sang Christmas songs the whole drive! Well we just drove and drove until we finally found a road that we thought would go up to the mountains, at first we thought that we had taken the wrong exit because it has a dead end and no turn around sign at the exit from the freeway and for me that usually means the road ends in the next 500 ft, not 5 miles later...Haha! Luckily, we had my phone that showed the road going to the forest and we just went that way anyways. It just turned into a dirt road 500 ft later so maybe that is way they put those signs there...who knows. Well we got to the sign that said Caribou Forest, the road was starting to get quite muddy so we just pulled off and hiked the rest of the way. Rueben loved it! He would ran ahead as fast as he could then turn around and book his way back to us! Haha it was hilarious! Since we were hiking we wanted to find a tree that was pretty close, but pine trees were pretty sparse at the entrance of the forest, lots of Junipers and sagebrush. we found a little patch and most of them were way bigger than what we wanted and the only one that would work had like a foot of no branches in the middle of the tree. So we continued on our search. We hiked and it started to get up into the snow, which Rueben loved even more he would bound around and then dive his face into it! It was great! Let's just say he was tuckered out for the rest of the day. We finally found a bigger patch of pine trees, and there was about two or tree that we thought could possible work. Two of them were across a little, but kind of deep ravine. We decided to get one of those. The tree was probably around nine feet tall, but it has a tiny little base like two to three inches. It was a really lite tree which is good because we had to carry it back to the truck. We got it back to the truck and strapped it down. We headed back to Logan. On our way back we say a giant rooster pheasant just sitting on the side of the freeway like it was nothing. When we got home we cut off some of the tree and brought it inside! It fit perfectly...we were a little worried because if you have ever been to my house you know how small it is and there is not a lot of room for new items.
(I did take pictures, but have miss placed my camera between the mountain and my house, hopefully it is in the truck)
On to the crafts, so this is actually the first Christmas tree Creed and I have had together so we didn't have any decorations, nor do we have a lot of extra money to buy a whole bunch of decorations. So we made them ourselves and can I say I just love them so much they turned out amazing!
1. Pop Can 3-D stars
Creed actually made these and I love them to death, and Creed loved the fact that he got an excuse to buy and drink a pack of soda. Haha.
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| This is what they started out as. |
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| This is the end product, after I glittered them. |
2. Clothespin Snowflakes
I have a ton, like hundreds of left over clothespins from our wedding so I am always trying to find cute crafts to use them in. This has to be one of my favorites so far.
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| First you had to take the clothespins apart. |
So I hot glued them before staining them and that did not work very well, because for some reason the chemicals in the stain made them just fall apart so if I every do it again I will stain them all first and then glue them together.
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| Are they not the prettiest things ever! |
3. Glitter and Feather Glass Balls
Everyone knows I have an obsession with pheasant feathers, luckily I married a hunter man who loves to shoot pheasants so it is an easy obsession to fill. I didn't have the patience to perfectly line each feather exactly were it went, I tried and almost ended up throwing the glass ball across the room so I just ended up putting them in there until the ball was full of feathers. For the glitter balls we just used a floor wax to moisten the inside of the balls and then added the glitter. They turned out pretty we did it with gold and then a white, that make them look like snow globes.
What the tree looks like, it is not a very good picture because it is the middle of the day, but of course I would top it of with a burlap bow. It looks amazing at night and hopefully it will make my house smell like Christmas (once the stain smell goes away) haha!
