Moving into 2011, we at Koolred thinks it's time for a change as we opt for inexpensive materials and handmade decorations this festive season, instead of ridiculously-priced Christmas ornaments and putting up artificial trees.

Okie, we kid. We did have our traditional Christmas tree set up awhile back, but we actually 'recycled' the entire tree and decorations from last year. But we've also set up our very own Koolrecycled Christmas tree, made from empty cardboard boxes and wrapped in magazine sheets.

If you're not up for structuring your own cardboard Christmas tree, that's okie you can still opt for greener options when it comes to decorating your tree. You can make do with a whole lot of materials by decorating the tree with recycled items. Make ornaments out of light bulbs, toilet rolls, CDs- anything that would end up in the garbage bin could be used to transform that Christmas tree into a funky and unique tree that would not cost you a penny!

In this post we'll be sharing a step-by-step process on how to make your very own personalised recycled tree, all in the spirit of a 'Go Green' Christmas.

Instructions

Things you will need:

Grab whatever cardboard and paper items you can get your hands on (preferably boxes that come in different length and heights so that you can stack them up into a tree-like manner)

- Magazines and newspapers

- Scissors and blades

- Pens and pencils

- Strings/ ribbons

- Tape and glue

- Christmas lights

Step 1

Adjust and stack up the boxes from the largest to the smallest. Don't worry if you get it wrong the first few tries. Your tree should most importantly be stable, so take some time to select and stack the boxes right.

Step 2

Once you're happy with how your 'tree' is shaped, you can proceed to wrap each individual box with pages from magazines.

Tip: Use colorful pages and remember to paste the sheets in overlaps and not like you're wrapping a present (this is to enhance the funkiness of the tree). Check out one of our team mates' wrapped box called "Faces" where she cleverly chose magazine pages to blend them into one theme.

Step 3

A Christmas tree is not complete without its bright and shining star at the top, so use a blade to cut out a star from a cardboard piece and decorate it with gold paper or any shiny paper you can find.

Step 4

To make the Christmas star stand at the top of the 'tree', stuff some scrunched-up newspaper/ magazine pages (or any unwanted bits of paper) into the highest or smallest box of the tree. This is to create more weight for the box so that the star will be more stable. Use a blade to cut a small incision at the top of the highest box so you can fit the star to stand. You can also stick a piece of chopstick at the back of the 'star' to have it stand.

Step 5

If you have extra boxes which were not suitable to be part of the Christmas Recycled Tree, don't let those go to waste! Wrap them up as presents to compliment your 'tree'. Also you can use strings as ribbons to decorate the 'presents', or cut out thin strips of paper to make ribbon crafts:

Step 6

When everything is in place, as tradition goes place your Christmas star at the top of the 'tree'. A Christmas tree should also be illuminated so decorate it with ropes of bright lights.

Step 7

Once the 'tree' and 'presents' are in place, have some good ole' Christmas traditions and games such as creating wish lists and writing them on cardboard cut-out heart tags (2011's dawning upon us!). 'Wonder which one of us will have their wish come true…

And there you have it folks! We've transformed this:

  into this   

We hope you enjoyed this post as much as we did making our Koolred Recycled Tree. And we would like all of you to share your thoughts- what's the most unique Christmas decoration you've set eyes on? Any specific themes you favour during Christmas?

Or perhaps you want to embark on your very own recycled theme Christmas? Recycling saves as resources are conserved- for every ton of paper that is recycled, we save 17 trees, 60,000 gallons of water, 225 kilowatt hours and 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space.

Christmas is about giving… and that's a whole lot of giving back, isn't it?

Till then, Koolred would like to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas!