Am I the only one who thinks bottle trees actually look better with random junk than real glass?

I see everyone in this group going on about how you need those fancy blue glass bottles for a proper bottle tree. But I've had one in my yard in Nashville for about 4 years now, and I swear it looked way better when I just hung old rusty tools and plastic golf balls on it. About 6 months ago I caved and spent $40 on real glass bottles from a craft store, and now it just looks like a garden center display. The weird mismatched junk gave it character, you know? Those glass bottles all reflect the same light and it's boring to look at after a week. Has anyone else tried going the opposite way and loading up their tree with junk instead of bottles?

2 comments

2 Comments

chen.james19d ago

Got a 5-gallon bucket of loose change in my garage from the last 12 years of yard sales and flea markets. Threw some old brake drums and a rusted horseshoe on my tree last summer and got more compliments from neighbors than when I had the blue bottles up. The key is to use stuff that catches different kinds of light like rusty metal has that orange glow at sunset while plastic junk just looks weird and fun. Also helps to mix in a few real glass bottles but keep them beat up and scratched so they don't look too perfect. If you start hitting garage sales for old tools and random kitchen gadgets you'll have a junkyard tree that actually draws the eye way better than anything from Michael's.

wendy97819d ago

Oh man hard disagree on this one. The whole point of a bottle tree is that glass catches light and makes those pretty colors, rusty junk just looks like someone dumped trash on a metal pole. Sorry but plastic golf balls and old tools aren't doing anything special for the tree, they just make it look cluttered and random in a bad way.