In preparation for this Christmas in July, I found myself glued to Pinterest and Jen over at her You Tube channel, Pretty Neat Living. What gold-mines of ideas!
Day One is devoted to trees - how to make a tree look fuller, tree decorating tips, tricks, and techniques, and the use of garland either ribbon, tinsel, beads, or another form. Jen's idea to use gloves when fluffing your tree is brilliant - she has a type of running gloves but I would think gardening gloves (not too thick but thick enough to avoid being constantly stabbed by the pointy pine needles (real or fake)) would work as well. It really gives you the opportunity to get in there and fluff quite energetically. My decorating tip is to place the largest ornaments first especially large round balls. They really fill in gaps. I start with the large round balls and other large ornaments, and then work my way up the size range of our ornaments. I have so many that there are usually at least three ornaments per branch/limb so you need to work carefully to make sure that they are visible from various angles. I have a lot of what I call sitters, ornaments that are too heavy to hang from a branch and these I secure to the top of a thick section of the branch by way of an alligator clip glued to the bottom of the ornament. One of my heaviest sitters is this Cape Henry Lighthouse. It's designed as a decorative piece, something you would display on a table, but since our tree has a lot of ornaments from places we've visited or traveled, I wanted to add it to the tree.
One of the best investments I've made is the revolving tree stand. It makes decorating so easy! Just decorate a section of the tree, turn it slightly, continue decorating, and repeat. No more big gaps at the back and you can let it spin (it's very gradual) so that everyone can enjoy all of your ornaments. I bought mine at Home Depot.
Finally, my favorite tree from my Pinterest searching this year - the nostalgic tree full of "glittered family initials, iconic Christmas figurines, and preppy plaid bulbs, the perfect backdrop for celebrating new and treasured traditions". I found it here but the site doesn't have a search option so I just copied and pasted the photo.
I agree that a revolving tree stand is a must. Of course you will need to decorate the back of the tree which means you can shop for more ornaments. Thanks for your CIJ posting.
ReplyDeleteSuch good ideas, Pamela! I also place the largest ornaments first. I have some very large papier-mâché ornaments -- vintage, from Germany -- that I always put on the tree first.
ReplyDeleteI like the tree you shared from Pinterest. The room it was placed in is also gorgeous.
We have the revolving tree stand, but our 9-ft tree is too heavy for it. I'm like you, I put so many ornaments on the tree it is decorated from the "trunk" to the tips. It's a lot of effort, but I really enjoy the end result!
ReplyDeleteRevolving stand sounds nice but wouldn't work with my lights. I also load my tree and I don't get all the ornaments on it.
ReplyDeleterevolving stand - nice! wouldn't work here .. not enough space but still I would love that.
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