This year’s obsession is house-shaped tea light holders. We recently put up two long shelves in our living room. They’re really long and high up enough so they can’t be taken over by my 4 year old and his obsession with making displays of his toys.

I’ve accumulated a small collection of tea light holders and I’ve made them into a little village, complete with sweet little bottle brush trees.

I was aiming for a green and white theme but a few red houses have slipped in so I thought I would mix up the colour even more by bleaching a few of my bottle brush trees.

Equipment needed to bleach bottle brush trees:
assortment of bottle brush trees (I bought mine from eBay)
household bleach
plastic container
kitchen gloves
warm water

How to bleach bottle brush trees:

Set up your equipment in a well ventilated area. I used my kitchen as I had easy access to water and an open window.

Put on your rubber gloves. Fill up a small plastic container two thirds full of warm water. I used a plastic measuring jug. Pour in your household bleach to make up a third of the solution and mix.

Carefully dip your bottle brush tree into the water and bleach solution. This is the fun part!

It’s not an exact science so you can experiment. Watch as the solution turns cloudy and keep bringing up your bottle brush tree so you can check the colour change. I dipped my large tree for only 20 seconds, it really does change colour super quick!

The smaller trees I dipped for 10-15 seconds as I tried to get a variation of colours for my display.

When you’re happy with the result rinse your trees with warm water, leave to dry on a paper towel.

Bleaching shouldn’t remove the fake snow but you can add more glitter with a little glue when they’re dry if needed.

What do you think? It’s a really easy fix and I love being able to customise shop bought decorations.