This Christmas we were inspired to do something useful with our Christmas tree - something we'd never done before as it has always been put on the curbside or, sometimes, brought to the local Christmas tree donation drop-off for chipping (which is pretty good). But we wanted to see if we could do something MORE creative, crafty even, so we embarked on the following odyssey....
posted originally from: AT:New York
After pulling the very beautiful tree out of our families' house on Long Island, we took out our handy machete and started disassembling it. The idea was to break it down into pieces that we could use in some way. The best idea we had was to collect all the needles and make a few small evergreen pillows.
Taking the tree apart was satisfying.
We got it into three basic parts: the trunk, the branches and the tips of the branches where all the needles are.
The trunk we chopped up and decided to use for firewood.
The branches we used for kindling and it worked really, really well.
But now we have a tub full of all these beautiful needles that won't fall off or come off of the branch tips and we're wondering what to do. Does anyone have a good idea for either a. how you get needles off easily or b. what we could do with all of them after wards (besides pillows)?
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
Be careful with burning pine. Even without the needles, it burns hot and quickly, with lots of smoke and sparking (potentially into your room). It can add to the creosote build-up in your chimney and even cause a chimney fire. In small doses you should be fine, but I wouldn't burn a lot of it.
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I think you should have stuck with mulching. That would have guaranteed that your tree was getting used and was going to a good cause. Instead you've now got:
- creosote build up in your chimney
- a tub of needles that you have no idea what to do with
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