Martha Stewart and Rachel Ray must not have cats.

I don’t, of course, know this to be true. I am merely speculating based on their ideas for home decor and in this case specifically, Christmas decorating. A quick google search of “Martha Stewart Christmas” yields many lovely ideas using delicate glass balls, elegant fruit displays on crystal cake stands, deliciously decorated gingerbread houses and a myriad of other shiny fragile and breakable things.

Needless to say our house which is generally loaded with pet hair, does not resemble a Rachel Ray Christmas. Couple the pet destruction and my fondness for making things from trash and well you get a very different Holiday experience indeed. 🙂

Over the years I have made many “decorations” with my destructive pets in mind. There is nothing breakable on the Christmas Tree which serves as giant toy box for the cats during the Holiday season . A couple of years ago I even made them their own kitty cat Christmas box condo. But honestly the safest solution from any unwanted cat exposure has been to put the decorations outside. I learned this with some Halloween decorations when I made a giant spiderweb from some plastic grocery bags. My first attempt lasted about 30 seconds once the cats found it.

The following year I made an even larger version which I cautiously hung up outside. Remarkably it withstood sun, rain, snow and heavy winds, and was still in good condition when I took it down after several weeks of exposure to the elements.

For this weeks project I decided to decorate a small tree in my back yard with some lights and a few Christmas “ball” decorations. I like the way it looks especially when the sun shines through the plastic bottles.

And at night when the solar powered lights come on.

Of course the tree is safe from our indoor cats but when I turned my back the dogs did this to the solar panel.

Ay caramba! Can’t a human catch a break?

Not in my house. 🙂

Happy Upcycling,