Christmas Tree Alternative

I'm Scrooge when it comes to Christmas.  It isn't until the day before or even sometimes the day of that I get into the Christmas spirit.  If it was up to me, I would have skipped having a tree last year all together but my girlfriend demanded I put up a tree.  After a whopping five minute adventure through my apartment storage, I realized, I didn't even have a tree....and there was no way in hell I was going to buy one.  A quick pinterest search for alternative Christmas trees and voila.

This picture however doesn't do the tree justice.

I ended up grabbing a plastic star that lit up from Target for $8.  

Penny Wall Art

This was one of my first Pinterest projects. Penny art is cheap, flashy, and easy.

Original post: http://www.thecraftedsparrow.com/2012/01/loose-change.html

I pretty much followed instructions exactly on this one. I choose to paint my cardboard letters black instead of copper. Downtown lights at night was my inspiration for the black/copper combo.

What you need:

-Cardboard/paper mâché letters

- Paint

- Pennies (I used about 250)

- Glue (I used gorilla glue)

Directions:

1. Paint the letters the color of your choice.

2. Once the painted letters are dry, practice laying out the pennies. Notice there are two layers of pennies that are going to be placed on the letters. I spread out the pennies on the bottom layer to cover space and used the top layer to fill the black space in the middle.

3. Once you are happy with the layout, glue the first layer of pennies. Let that layer dry completely before glueing the second layer.

My mom would say to use Modge Podge (or deco podge as I called in growing up) to seal the pennies on and make the whole thing shine.  I havent yet but I probably will after a little time.  The gorrile glue, however, is amazing.  These pennies are STUCK.

"See a penny, pick it up.  All day long, you will have good luck," I chose to place all my pennies "heads up"