christmas tree decorating tips

Seasons > Christmas > Decorations for the home > How to Decorate Christmas Trees

How to Decorate Christmas Trees

For a 6 to 7 foot tree, you need 10 each of 5-7 different ornaments. I put all 10 of one kind on the tree at a time so they get evenly distributed. Here are some hints for buying ornaments:

1.Buy ornaments that are not breakable so that if you drop them, or don’t pack them well, they won’t break. You also don’t have to worry about trying to keep small children or pets from touching them.
2.Buy ornaments in multiples. If you see any ornaments that you like, buy 5 to 10 of them. (At dollar stores, If you go home to think about it and go back the next day to buy them, they will probably be sold out.) Some ornaments come 2 to a pack, or 6 to a pack, so those are quite inexpensive.
3.Buy ornaments that fit the tree: miniature ornaments for 2 foot trees, and big ornaments for 6 foot trees and giant ornaments for a tree in the yard.
4.Look in different parts of the dollar store: toys, gardening center, wrapping paper section for ribbons, key chains,etc. (the bears in the photo are keychains, the soldiers were in the toy section, and the brass buckets were in interior decorating.)
5.If you buy ornaments as a pre-made set, think of it as a base set, and add more interesting ornaments to go along with these.
6.Inexpensive items to use as ornaments: bows, pine cones, Christmas carols printed on paper, photos of your children in small frames or make ornaments from origami.
7.Make ornaments: The best material for making ornaments it Hearty. it is light weight and very strong. You can make snowmen and gingerbread men or just about anything else you can imagine. Your children can help you make ornaments, too.
8.Give a new ornament to each child each year: It is especially meaningful if it represents something about that year--a ballet figurine for the year she started taking ballet lessons, or a soccer ball for the year he started playing soccer. When they move away, they will have a whole collection of ornaments that are filled with happy memories.
9.Picking a theme has become popular in recent years, and can help inspire you for the kinds of objects to buy or make. Here are a few ideas for themes to get you started: toys, musical ornaments, nativity figurines, sports items, ocean items, or even colors.

These wire trees are actually frames for potted plants. If you hang ornaments on them, they became Christmas trees. Another way to make them: use plant cages for tomatoes and beans. Just turn them upside down and fasten the legs together, then decorate.

People tend to think of Christmas trees as being a standing decoration, but these are hung on the wall. The tree on the left is a regular Christmas tree with a basket covering it’s base. The branches on the back have been pulled forward so it can lie flat against the wall, which also makes the tree look fuller. The lower branches were too long, so they were bent in half. It could also be hung upside down (shown on the right) as a swag rather than a tree. Hide the base with a big bow.

Small trees need small ornaments. Fortunately, most dollar stores carry small balls in almost any color you could want, and ribbons that can be made into bows.

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Seasons > Christmas > Decorations for the home > How to Decorate Christmas Trees

These may not look like Christmas trees but they are all dollar store trees that have been turned sideways and put on a table or hung under or above a window. This is the cheapest way I have found to get greenery for all over the house. (Of course fresh greenery gives off a wonderful scent, but that can get expensive.) Remove the bases, fasten the two bases together in the middle with florist’s wire, and decorate with a bow in the middle, and add decorations, if you like.

String lights first. Rather than wrapping lights all the way around the tree, just wrap it in a zig-zag up the front of the tree. It makes it much easier to put the lights on and take them off again. I start at the bottom, and work up to the top. For the lowest branches, I think it distributes the lights better if you run the strings of lights along each branch. A timer to turn the lights on and off can be convenient.

The traditional tree topper is a star or angel, but there are many options to choose from. Some people even use a large bow. The base of a tree is not very pretty, so many people cover it with a tree skirt. Any cloth swirled around the base of the tree will work just as well (sheet or tablecloth.) If you want to make a skirt, cut a large circle of felt and glue or sew on decorations. You can cut decorations out of felt, or just buy felt decorations like mittens or stockings at the dollar store and glue them to the circle. Cut a hole in the middle for the tree to go through, and a slit on the back side so you can put it around the tree. Sew or glue ribbon in two or three places along both sides the slit so you can tie it shut to hold the skirt in place. Velcro would be an alternative way to fasten it shut.

Step one: lights

Step two: ornaments

Christmas trees come in all kinds of shapes and sizes. You can have a different kind in every room. This pine cone tree was made by glueing pine cones to a styrofoam cone with a glue gun. A cardboard cone would work just as well.

This stack of boxes came as a set of 12 from Costco, so it is only half of the boxes. The rest form two more stacks elsewhere. They nest, so storage is not a problem. During Christmas season, they hold gift-wrap supplies and Christmas DVDs.

Because these trees and ornaments are so inexpensive, you can have one in each of your children’s rooms for them to decorate and take apart as many times as they like. When my son was younger, I decorated his tree with sports items--tiny baseballs and bats (key chains), soccer balls, (ping-pong balls with black patches drawn on with marker) and footballs made from Hearty. My daughters enjoyed decorating their tree to pretend it was their doll’s Christmas tree. The straw angels, wreaths and hearts were purchased at a dollar store.

Each of the trees in these three photos is grouped with other items...a bear, dolls, a glass bowl filled with balls, or nativity figures. It makes it more interesting than a tree standing by itself. The bowl of balls also has a string of lights going through it.

You can make lots of ornaments yourself. Wrap small boxes or just pieces of styrofoam to make presents. Buy small cookie cutters and make tiny gingerbread men, snowmen, and candy canes or fake popcorn strings.