My Christmas Tree Adventure

Some of you may remember that back in 2017 I started a collection of handmade “Artisan Birds,” mainly from artists in Costa Rica, but a few from other Central American countries and ended up with 2 from countries outside Central America. The collection has not grown much since the first two years or so, but I finally I now have a better tree on which to display them.

Up close on a few of my artisan birds. See each one individually in the linked gallery.

And you can see all of my “Artisan Birds” collection with labels of where they are each from in my photo gallery: My Artisan Birds Tree

The first year (2017) was the best display tree, a dead tree branch with lots of branches and I never found another like that. Last year I finally bought an artificial green bush or shrub which I kept most of the year in my living room with or without the artisan birds, but never liked it and the artificial limbs were too weak and droopy and earlier this month it went to the garbage man. And I vowed to find a better one this year!

Well, last week I found this all white artificial small tree with little tiny lights and decided that was it! But again, the limbs were too weak and droopy to handle the small weight of my tiny ornaments! (See the BEFORE & AFTER pictures below.) Grrrrr! BUT, “where there’s a will there’s a way!” I figured out how they made it with a real little tree trunk and wires going up and out for limbs, “they” just used too thin or flimsy wires. I thought, “why couldn’t they have used stiffer (heavier) wires?” Then I realized that if I could tell them how they “should” have done it, I could just do it myself! And I did! 🙂

I went to the main hardware store here in Atenas (La Ferretería Vargas & Hijos) and bought some heavier or stiffer wire (12.5 m roll) for a fraction of what the 3 rolls of white electrical tape (cinta blanca) cost and two days later I have totally “rewired” my little Christmas tree with the new heavy wire held to the older thinner wires with lots of white electrical tape wrapped around every centimeter of every limb and the trunk! A LOT OF WORK! But, ta daa! I now have a new tree that is strong enough to hold the artisan birds! 🙂 Here are two pairs of “Before & After” photos to show you what I accomplished . . .