After making those Christmas lights the other day, I got to thinking about what else you could do with the flotsam and jetsam of life with diabetes. A few ideas were:



1. Test strip bottle garland - using fishing line, thread thru where the cap joins the bottle. 100 bottles should make a manageable garland.

2. If you really want to drive yourself mental, make garland out of used test strips. You could either thread them on fishing wire using an upholstery needle or you could glue them together. I have doubts as to whether the glue would hold up for very long, though.

3. Syringe icicles. Snip the needles off (obviously), put fishing line or ribbon around the plunger end and hang on the tree.

4. Syringe icicle lights - using the same Tiny Lights that I used for the insulin bottle lights, string the syringes (again, snip the needles) onto the lights.

5. Pump reservoir icicle garland. Here's where I really get environmentally conscious - hang the pump reservoirs by their plungers from used tubing.

Think of the landfill space that would be saved by doing this. And not only that, think of the impact an entire tree would have if it were decorated entirely in used diabetes supplies. There are a lot of malls that have sponsored Christmas trees. Wouldn't it be cool to have one of these down at your local mall? Wouldn't that be an excellent way to raise awareness while driving home the point that this is not a frivolous disease?