So Dexter and I were on a mission to find an affordable Christmas tree yesterday. We had major sticker-shock at a tree lot in Napa, check a few other places then gave up after dark. Today we cruised low-overhead Vallejo for more affordable options, and noticed so many homeless families around town asking for help.
Times are tough all around, we are all feeling it… so it’s hard to justify spending $50 on something that is isn’t food or heat. So… we donated our tree money to the Contra Costa/Solano Food Bank.
This doesn’t mean we can’t have a Christmas tree. We wanted to make a Steampunk Christmas Tree out of salvaged and upcycled materials.
Enter my dear friend William… who loaned me a French antique wine bottle dryer from William’s Antiks. It made the perfect Steampunk tree. I added my metal stars from Mexico and hand-made metal ornaments and voila!
Cinder Garden Designs 
I sometimes bring in a big bare decidious tree portion I find in the woods, put it in the tree stand and decorate it. It’s great – you can see all your ornaments beautifully without all those pesky leaves – you don’t spend and you don’t kill a tree. It has been called my Dr. Seuss tree (one of my favorite writers)
oh and of course these are tree parts that already have fallen – just in case you are wondering if I go out with an ax.