There are so many treasures to be found in my grandma's recipe collection. The following newspaper clipping from January 1963 is one of many I've discovered. I've scanned the image to share. Simply retyping this article and not including the photo would not have done justice. I wish there were a color photo available. I'll bet this tree was quite a site when it was finished.
Since this is difficult to read, the text follows:
Christmas is 11 months away, but if you plan to take on a project like that of the lady shown above, you better get an early start.
Mrs. James Hamm of Bethlehem, PA designed and built a 6 foot high Christmas tree out of toothpicks and styrofoam. She used 50,000 colored toothpicks and 400 miniature colored lights, plus hundreds of tiny red ornaments.
Mrs. Hamm built the tree on a 33" square styrofoam base, using chicken wire to attach ornaments and help support the tree. She inserted the toothpicks in 2 sizes of styrofoam balls - 190 per small one and 270 in the larger size. She then sprayed them with green paint, which also helped hold the toothpicks in place.
She strung the lights by weaving them among the toothpicks so as to hide the cord. The balls were then attached to the chicken wire frame for support.
Mrs. Hamm built the tree in her basement workshop and sprayed it with artificial snow. She built it in 3 sections to make it easy to assemble, disassemble and store until next Christmas.
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