How to Create a Little Girl's Dream Tree
Last year the sweetest hubs eva' bought me three more Christmas trees. I believe, with the smaller trees and the live one we buy each year, that brings the total up to 6 trees. Wowzers!
I had always wanted a tree in every room and now I pretty much have that! How blessed of a gal am I?
Anyway, the trees Nick got me were a total steal of a deal. I love the trees but they admittedly are not the highest quality of artificial tree. You can see I have some high soap box to stand on seeing as how I have never, ever, outside of these past two Christmas' owned an artificial tree. Eh hem.
I really know not much about the world of artificial trees. But from watching every.single.persons instastories these last few days while they assemble how quick and easy their artificial tree comes together I'm going to go out on a limb (ha!) to guess that these are not the highest quality. Oh, and did I mention they are 8 foot trees and were only $10 apiece? So there's that fact too...
Anywho, last year we let the kiddos decorate the trees anyway they wanted. Our kids are creative to say the least. They each had one in their bedrooms so it was a perfect set up. Until... One child thought socks looked epic on the tree. Another only wanted pipe cleaners. Which is fine. But by the end of the Christmas season there were things scattered all around the room from the trees and I couldn't tell heads from tails on what was an ornament, trash, or should be in the laundry hamper.
This year I decided to take the decorating in a new direction. At least with Emma's room. We purchased new bedding this year (after buying a new bedroom suite for her) and so I encouraged her to decorate her tree to match her room. She loved that idea. So what was our option but to get on Pinterest to browse ideas? Of course! And can I just tell you, I adore Emma's bedding! We got it from Matilda Jane and it was the collection that was designed by Joanna Gaines. It is super girly and fun but I also love the greens and yellows that are with the pinks. As Emma gets older I wanted something that was still girly and cute but wasn't over the top pink and this fits the bill exactly!
As I mentioned we went to Pinterest and I found a ton of pink themed trees. They were GORGEOUS! The only thing was they were all starting with either a pink or white tree. So I felt from the get-go a little nervous. I never can seem to follow a Pinterest tutorial to a t so I decided to wing it!
After all to follow our year of no spending (ignore that part of buying new bedding and furniture above! Geesh I stink at this!) I should be able to decorate this tree with what we have around the house, I thought. So we set out to do just that. If you need a tree I found this deal on Target this year!
Here are the details:
First we started with the tree.
As I mentioned this is one of those cheap-o Charlie Brown trees. It was a bit sparse looking.
So we followed with lights.
We have always been a strict multi-colored strands of lights kind of family but I felt that would look perhaps a bit too clowny in Emma's room. So we opted for white and pink lights. I had a strand of white lights. I found a strand of pink lights at Walmart (I think for 100 lights it was $2.36!). They look amazing! So perfect for a girl's room! I cannot find these lights online to show you but here they are on Amazon.
Next we stuffed the tree. Literally.
Like for real. Stuffed the tree.
I found this amazing tutorial on the Shabbyfufu blog that I followed to stuff the tree to give the illusion of snow. I did not have stuffing but rather batting that goes in a quilt so I decided to try to make that work. And it did! We did have to kind of pull it and twerk it a bit so it didn't look just like a flat hotdog of cotton but in the end it worked.
Be sure to check out her blog to learn more! She's fantastic.
The batting helped to fill in the wide open gaps of the branches, gave it a softer look, and it helped to give the lights more of a glow rather than a harsh blinding light. I had this on hand but I purchased it last year from Hobby Lobby for another craft project for just a few dollars. Remember to use one of their famous 40% off coupons!
Then we Laced it up.
Nick's aunt gave me the most amazing treasure trove of vintage lace. So many different kinds. Yards and yards of them. It is amazing. Anytime I have a project that could use a bit of lace I simply open up our lace drawer and get to have all kinds of fun going through it all to pick out the perfect one. They are all perfection.
Anyway, I let Emma pick out a lace and then we used it as a garland around the tree. I have never used lace on a tree before but it works perfectly and lends such a feminine touch. Don’t have any lace? I found this amazing deal on Amazon for lace! Gobs of different kinds!
Next up? Ornaments!
We had already decorated our family tree in the living room and while we were doing that I had Emma hold onto the ornaments that were pink, white, gold, or silver. She also had a couple that she wanted on her tree that weren't those colors and that was fine with me! As much as I wanted to give her a tree that matched I wanted more to give her a tree she LOVED. I wanted it to be something she liked not something I forced her to have.
We put all of the ornaments we had saved on and we both decided that it looked like the perfect amount of flare. I love that a lot of the ornaments are things from little girls dreams...ballet shoes, dollhouses, snowflakes, kittens, tea cups...so fun and girly!
A bit 'o swag for the bottom!
I went upstairs into our fabric bin and drug out this piece of satin. If you can believe it, I had bought it 17 years ago for some projects I had been planning for our wedding!!!! But we eloped and didn't need them, end of story, ha, but I still have the satin. It's rough edged. I simply draped it around the base and up the base a bit to fill in the gap between the tree legs and where the tree begins. I am obsessed with how it turned out!
Last but not least, the Angel!
My grandmother had given me this angel she had used for years. We have a stained glass star we put on the top of our tree so I had never used the angel on our big tree but once Emma started having a tree I knew exactly where it should go. It looks lovely on top of her tree.
And voila! We fashioned a cheapy $10 Christmas tree into something magical and ethereal. The tree is situated at the foot of Emma's bed and she loves falling asleep under the glow of the lights.
Blessings to you this Christmas season! We love getting our home ready to celebrate Jesus' birth and the 12 days of Christmas. I hope this inspires you to create your own little girl tree. And I encourage you to look around your home, up in your rafters, wherever, for inspiration and items you can use. You never know what might strike your fancy to use!
Merry Christmas to you!