My bottle tree is made like yours but is taller. I used rebar for bottle holders. And like you I have just started putting it together. Have been saving donated vodka bottles for several years, And other odd bottles that I found. Now that they have the blue beer bottles, I bought four 12 packs (and I don't drink beer) been giving it to a friend who will drink it. My tree will hold 83 bottles, And the post is painted a medium blue. I need to cut 23 more pieces of rebar before I can finish it.

Here's another item I think could be fun (I want one!) It's the Boogie Board (again, it's at a higher price right now on A, I've seen it at $27). I first saw it at Brookstone (or was it Sharper Image? get those two stores mixed up). BTW Brookstone/SI are two stores good for finding unique gifts for people who have everything. Another idea is to get them a Christmas decoration, a fancy ornament for the tree for instance. When my MIL was alive she was the hardest person to buy for, didn't seem to like or want anything. Until I stopped looking inside and turned my attention outside. The only time I made a hit with her with a gift was the stone puppy dog I bought for her garden. Never occurred to me before to buy her a garden ornament but it was the one thing she didn't have. I have lots of ideas for hard to please people because I've got plenty of them in my family. ;-) If you know what they like to eat you can usually do pretty good with gift baskets of specialty foods, the gourmet kind that they haven't tried before. Here is a link that might be useful: Boogie Board

As if there could ever be a problem with extra beer... There's never a problem with extra beer, the problem is the shortage of beer! Been to a few parties where that was a problem! Course that was in my younger days! Minnesota has it's own unique issues. Can't buy a car on Sunday. Can't buy liquor or strong beer on Sunday but you can buy 3.2. Minnesota is one of I think 3 states that sell 3.2. I think 3.2 should be outlawed but that's me. Some places you could go in and buy a beer in a bar, ask them to not open it. However you have to be careful. Some places could get in trouble if you take it off premises if they don't have an off-sale license and even if they do, then there's the Sunday laws. ARGH! To me something is legal to sell or illegal. How does it make sense to anyone other than some Bible-waving lunatic to say it's legal to sell beer 6 days a week but not on 1? Blues laws are obsolete. People work all different hours and should be able to buy their legal goods when they want to buy them. When I worked graveyard shift it always irritated be because at the time restaurants only served breakfast at 7AM. Now I'm a fan of breakfast but after working all night I wanted something more like a steak, meatloaf or something to sink my teeth into.

It ain't all bad, but none of it is actually good yet, at least those I have tried. Hardy's, Jacob's Creek, and a few others from Australia make box wine that is drinkable, but not yet "good", although I suppose it is only a matter of time before they are putting even better juice in the boxes. Personally, I think it's a grea idea, but the market is not going to accept good wine in bags for a few years yet, so it is only the cheapest stuff that is going in. The wines from California mentioned in the link are really not worth drinking. At least not if you like wine. Dont' know how much you want to spend, but you can get really nice rose for under $10 a bottle, and really nice whites for the same. Some wonderful roses are available right now for $5 - $10. In fact, they may represent some of the best bargains out. For whites, New Zealand sauvignon blancs tend to be safe - maybe not exceptional but it is hard to find a really bad one. Also look at the big producers in Washington - the Chateau St. Michelle group that includes Columbia Crest and Villa Mt Eden. They make rieslings and chardonnays that are around $6 a bottle and astoundingly good for the prices. Even the Germans have a few rieslings at the QBA level that are worth looking at for under $10. For reds, you might want to look at some Argentine wines - the offerings from Altos las Hormigas, Norton, Dona Paula and others for example, are often as low as $6-$7 and really good. Spain has a lot of under $10 wines - Tres Picos (drinks like a MUCH more expensive Chateauneuf du Pape), Pannaroz, Las Rocas, and others are nice, as well as many from Australia, including the lower end offerings of Hardy's, Wishing Tree, Paringa, and others. Unfortunately, the cheaper California offerings are of lower quality, although if you stay away from Napa and Sonoma, your price/quality ratio improves. Fess Parker is making some nice wines in Santa Barbara. They have pictures of him as Daniel Boone or Davy Crockett on the labels but the wine itself is made by his son and is not bad. Joel Gott has a zin called Three Thieves - his family has been in the wine business forever and he has contacts for good fruit. The wine comes in a little jug but it's a decent buy, not great.