Bleaching Bottle Brush Trees

Have you ever wondered how to get those cool looking cream and colored bottle brush trees. Well I finally tried it this year and it worked!

First of all they come that dark green with the white snow on them and usually a bag full of them. I got a bag of 16--assorted sizes--at Big Lots for 6.99.

This is what I ended up with after bleaching and dyeing. I think they turned out quite pretty!

To bleach your little trees fill a sink about half full or so of water and add a good cup or so of bleach and then pop your trees in. See the dark green one--that was their original color. Let them sit and soak for a long, long time! In fact you'll probably wonder if it's going to even work, but it will. It took my trees each a good 2 hours before they bleached out and sometimes the little white snow won't come off--don't worry about it. You can try and pick it off too.

After the bleaching process was done I then drew up a sink of cold water and added a cup or so of vinegar and rinsed the trees in this. The vinegar will nuetralize the bleach.

The light green tree in the top photo is one I took out part way through bleaching. The pink ones I dyed using Easter egg dye. Just mix up the dye tablet per package instructions--I put mine in a mason jar--then add your tree and shake and voila! A colored tree. And they take the dye quite well, so don't leave them in the dye for very long. Then you can add glitter and baubles if you want.

And that's all there is to creating your own beautiful vintage looking bottle brush trees! See I told you it was easy!