Mini Winter Wonderland

Christmas 2012 at my house was the year of the

bleached and glittered bottle brush tree.  I had loved 

seeing the vintage-y looking trees on Pinterest during

the year, then when I found lots of cheap trees to 

bleach, I went cray-cray decorating with them.

This post is about how I used the little trees and 

snow village houses on the dining room table.

I copied the idea of painting the inexpensive houses

from Karen of Shabby Sweet Cottage blog.

Karen got her houses at The Dollar Tree; I just 

happened to be in Wal Mart and saw similar ones

for only a dollar too that I purchased to paint.

My Wal Mart has $1 spray paint.  I chose the

glossy white to put on the houses. It took three coats of

the cheap paint to cover up all the paint work that some 

person somewhere in the world took to put the details 

on the houses...sorry, Person! Well, one can of  $1 spray

 paint for six little houses is still a good paint job price.

After the paint dried, the little white houses came inside

to get "snowy".  When snow falls on real houses it 

shows up mostly on roofs and overhangs so instead of putting

a spray adhesive on the houses, I painted on a clear glue

 on the roofs and awnings only.

  

Immediately after putting the glue on, the houses 

were sprinkled first  with Epsom salt and then glitter.

Epsom salt is inexpensive and can be found in the 

pharmacy department of drug and discount stores. 

I had purchased some Martha Stewart glitter at

an after Christmas sale one year $2 for six tubes.

It was perfect "for such a time as this". 

Because the Epsom salt is more coarse than the glitter

I put it on first so it would not cover up the glitteriness.

Since the little houses and trees were going to be situated in

"snow" that I didn't want directly on my dining room table,

they got put on cake stands and trays.

I had seen a product online called  SnoWonder that claimed

 to look and feel like real snow so I ordered some.

Just a tiny amount swells up to a whole bowl full

when water is added to it.  The artificial snow got added

to the silver serving pieces acting as vignette holders.

More trees, silver ornaments, and votive candle holders

 were added to the dining room centerpiece.

The only "peeps" added to this vignette were a miniature

bride and groom to commemorate my son's upcoming wedding.

The bleached trees with silver balls were some I got 

last year from World Market.  The trees that I bleached

out this year in this vignette did not have glitter on them

but if you would like to see how to glitter the trees click here.

This pretty faux mercury votive with snowflake 

embellishement came from Wal Mart...a pack

of five with candles was only a little more than $5.

The only houses in this vignette that did not come 

from Wal Mart came from a local store that had marked

these little cardboard houses (with green bottle brush

trees even!) down to $3 because some of the glue had

turned yellow.  A quick paint job fixed that.  

The cardboard houses even had a battery operated light.

The silver cake stand was the highest element on the table.

I wanted to make sure that guests seated at the table could

see over the centerpiece.

If I had added the extension leaf to the table, I could have 

made the centerpiece larger but then the longer table cuts into

one of the main traffic paths through the house.

I like how the rusty wire running through the bottle brush

trees I bleached shows...it makes them look more vintage-y.

For info on bleaching bottle brush trees see "Bottle Brush Tree Mantle". 

The SnoWonder snow was very pretty and a fun 

conversation topic at meals as everyone wanted to touch it.

It did take a little bit of upkeep however to give it that

"freshly fallen" look.  The manufacturer did advise about

that in the information so it was not a surprize.

Since the product is 99% water, as the water evaporates,

the snow condenses.  A quick spritz of water from a 

spray bottle reconstitutes the snow immediately.

Before spritzing (a few days old snow)

After spritzing

Before spritzing

After spritzing

Only moments before, this daddy deer had only patchy snow to try to find food in.

Now after a spritz, the snow is up to his knees.

The water spritzes did not seem to affect the paint or snowy effect on the houses.

If you want "snow" that is less expensive and does not 
require any maintenance you can use epsom salt instead...
but the salt is not as really real looking.

I am sharing this post over at Debbie and Shannon's
3rd Annual All Things Dollar Tree Blog Party