I love Christmas! I always have. Not so much the commercial side of it, but the true deep meaning of the entire holiday season. Did you know the original meaning of “holiday” was “holy day?” It referred to days of religious observance in the Christian calendar. Whatever you choose to call it, Christmas is about Jesus, THE Light of the World!

My love language is gift giving. From the time I can remember, I have loved creating special gifts for those family and friends who mean so much to me. I love thinking of things to create that have special meaning. Sometimes I work on Christmas gifts up to three years in advance! I know, I’m crazy but I love it! This year I was finally able to complete a project that has been three years in the making. It didn’t take me three years to make them, but it did take me three years to gather all the necessary items.

Many of you know my love for bottle brush trees. I came up with the idea a few years ago to create a bottle brush tree arrangement incorporating a mercury glass ornament nestled onto an upside down vintage jello mold. The thing that took the most time was finding 100 vintage jello molds!

I’ve shared before that I do personal shopping for four wonderful women. I’ve been blessed to create gifts for one of these women for almost 47 years now! When I come up with my one big project for each Christmas, I do this knowing that I will need to make over 100 of the same thing. This year’s project took a lot of long-term planning.

I also like to take advantage of after-Christmas sales in preparation for the following year’s gifting projects. I love the feeling I have when I’ve finally gathered all the necessary items to complete a big project like this.

The mechanics of this project were a bit tricky. But with Ronnie’s help, I was able to get them all done! All my personal shopping ladies are all taken care of and have been for almost a couple months now. I knew this project would take a few months’ time to totally dry, so I started in August.

I had to remove the caps from the tops of all the mercury glass ornaments. This was time-consuming as they all had to be heated with a hair blow dryer to melt the hot glue that was used to glue them on. I also had to be careful because this made the ornament hot, as well as the metal cap on top. I carefully pried each cap off and because they are pretty, and I’ve used them for other projects in the past, I saved them. They are all tucked away and in a baggie when the time comes for a project that requires a pretty ornament cap. 😊

Using the correct type of glue for each part of a project is important. I used E-6000 to glue the mercury glass ornament to the jello mold which I turned upside down for this project. The indentation was perfect to nestle the ornament down into, and the glue holds metal and glass wonderfully. When all was said and done, I used over twelve tubes of clear E-6000 glue for this project! I let these dry for a minimum of 24 hours.

The next step was to remove the wooden bases from all the bottle brush trees. I ended up with a blister the size of a quarter on the palm of my hand by the time I finished this part. Some of the trees had a longer wire stem at the base than others. I had to figure out a way to make each stem longer so that I had something to secure the tree to down inside the ornament. Using the floral wiring skills I learned at “Judith Blacklock’s Flower School” in London, I was able to run a heavy piece of wire through the bottle brush tree and fold the two wire tails down and wrap them around the stubby wire base of each tree. To make this more secure, I ordered aluminum straws and Ronnie cut them to fit the length of the wire stems. I inserted the wire stems down into the aluminum straw and filled the straw with E-6000 glue. I lined the trees up inside cardboard boxes upside down for 24 hours to allow the glue to dry.

Next, I filled each ornament ¾ full with clean fine playground sand that I found at Home Depot. I used 75 pounds of sand for all the ornaments I filled! That was a big, heavy, messy job! Then I added a generous amount of clear Elmer’s glue not quite filling up the rest of the ornament. I wanted the trees to have a nice heavy base to keep them from tipping over and to support the stem of the tree I had created with the aluminum straw. The sand worked perfectly for this application. Before pushing the tree down into the sand and glue filled ornament, I ran a bead of clear E-6000 glue around the top edge of the ornament as well as another bead around the bottom of the tree. I’ve made the mistake of buying white or black colored E-6000 glue before. This may not matter on some projects, but on most of the projects I do, I need the glue to be clear and dry clear. Be sure to notice what color E-6000 glue you’re buying at the store. I get mine at Hobby Lobby.

Then it was time to gently push the stem of the tree down into the ornament. I had to be extremely careful when I did this. Out of all the ones I made, I only broke two ornaments in the process. Slow and steady is the key here. I had to lean these up against things in my kitchen to keep the trees perfects straight while the E-6000 glue dried for another 24 hours. Needless to say, we’ve been Christmas-ing for months now!

Thankfully Ronnie is a good sport and never complains about my projects that spill into all areas of the house before they are completely finished. After 24 hours, we set up a table in the basement and carefully carried all the trees downstairs to quietly finish drying for the next four months! I knew the clear Elmer’s glue would take that long to dry, that’s why I started in August.

Once they were completely dry, I made my customary ribbon sprigs, custom gift tags on my Cameo Silhouette, and tied them on with a lovely piece of ribbon.

Ribbon just makes everything in life better don’t you think?!!! I order most of my ribbon from “May Arts.” I love their top quality ribbons! 😊

Some of the mercury glass ornaments were not as thick as others and so I decided I needed to come up with a way to protect them for eventual delivery.

I ordered 6” clear plastic boxes and cut the top flaps off.

Then I added a sturdy 6” gold scalloped cake board for stability as well as esthetics in the bottom of the box and placed the completed tree inside. I believe presentation is just as important as the gift itself in many cases. They turned out exactly how I had envisioned and that’s always a plus - especially when you finish a project that has been three years in the making! I added a little paper cone on top to instruct the recipients to pick these up by the mercury glass ornament, and not by the top of the bottle brush tree. I know I took every possible measure to glue them securely, but I didn’t want there to be any chance of the tree pulling out of the ornament. My personal shopping ladies loved them, and Ronnie’s been out delivering ours already! I like to deliver these types of gifts as close to the first of December as possible so that people can enjoy them as they decorate their homes for Christmas.

The real test of durability was to see how well these would ship. I had to ship three of them, and each recipient reported they arrived all in one piece and just in time to decorate for Christmas!

I already know what my project will be for next year, and the year after that! I have a few more things to gather to make these happen, so whichever one gets gathered first will be the one I do in 2026. If you love to gift handmade items, be sure to take advantage of the after Christmas sales to give you a headstart on your 2026 gift making projects! I love to create, but I especially love to create things for Christmas! Creating and gifting brings LIGHT to my soul, and Hope that these projects bring a little more LIGHT into the lives of those who receive them!

Yesterday began the “Light The World” initiative by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. One more benefit of getting our Christmas gifts done and delivered early is the fact that it enables us to focus on serving others and doing what we can to bring LIGHT to those less fortunate than ourselves. I love the “Giving Machines” that are part of the “Light The World” initiative. I plan on buying another goat this year that will help a family somewhere in the world to have a little bit better life. I also love the daily calendar that gives service ideas for each day leading up to Christmas. For me, this isn’t an end of the year wind-down, it’s the boost I look forward to encouraging me to continue giving, serving and creating for the coming new year! Be sure to go to the website and check out all the things, especially the new nativity video that was just released yesterday. I love it when children act out the story of the Savior’s birth! They are filled with Light, innocence, love, joy and hope! All things the world is in desperate need of! https://lighttheworld.org

My wish for you this week is to look for one opportunity every day to serve someone. It doesn’t have to cost anything, it can be as simple as a smile, a compliment, or opening the door for someone. Whatever you choose to do, make it a point to bring LIGHT into someone’s life each day. As you do this, watch the Light in your own soul glow brighter with each act of service. “May the beautiful lights of every Christmas season remind us of HIM, Who is the source of all Light.” ~ David A. Bednar

Love Ya, Les 😊

Create

It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year!