Christmas Tree

I wish I had a better camera! I absolutely love my tree this year. These pics don't do it justice! This is the second year in a row that I have bought a shelf tree. I am in love. I will never go buy (hopefully one day, cut down) anything else.

Well, I shouldn't say never...

Again, this year, I didn't want the typical tree that all the lots sell. Full, bushy, you know what I am talking about. Last year, Tim and I found a little tree lot not too far from our house that sells these beautiful shelf trees. We are told by some friends that this is one of the only lots where we live that sells these trees. So, we went back this year, and voila! There it was. I loved this one because it was a little droopy, not so rigid. It reminded me a little of Charlie Brown. I liked that. We had to cut off some of the top and bottom to make it fit in our little house.

Decorating these shelf trees are awesome because of a couple of reasons:
1- You only need one strand of lights, well, maybe 2 if you are feeling up to it. Here's why: you wrap the lights up the trunk. At first you might think it is weird, but it will grow on you, I promise. Last year, I re-strung the lights on the tree 3 times before I figured out the trunk trick. Because these shelf trees are not full, they don't hide the wires of lights very well on the branches. I like wrapping the trunk with lights because it keeps the tree feeling really natural. This year, because the tree was so beautiful on its own without the decorations, I considered not putting any lights on! But, I caved and only used one strand of lights.

2- You can see the ornaments in all their glory! Again, I considered not putting any ornaments on at all because the tree was so beautiful on its own, but once I started decorating, I couldn't stop! Because of the space between the branches is so big, the ornaments actually hang! They don't lay on the branches like in fuller trees. I think, the more ornaments you have on these shelf trees the better! I used a lot of paper ornaments so not to weigh down the branches. The heavier ornaments I put towards the trunk. This was great because they twinkled next to the lights.

I hate tree skirts. So, this year I made Tim buy me a pot to put the tree in. There is a little tree stand inside the pot secured with rocks and gravel. I absolutely love the pot because there is not skirt to get caught in the vacuum and move when you need to water! I was worried that it wasn't going to be very stable, but it has been fine. Martha Stewart has some really great ideas for pots/bases on her website. Galvanized buckets are really cute too!


After 6 Christmas Trees, I finally have a tree topper! I found this wooden star at Target (love that place) on sale and thought it would look great on my tree. I have kind of an outdoors-y tree, so the sticks and twine go perfect. It was not intended to be a tree topper, but I jimmie-rigged (sp?) it and made it work!


This year I also added paper birds to my tree. Me and a couple of other women in my ward were in charge of the decorations for our ward Christmas party. We thought it would be really neat to do a nature theme with sticks and twigs and cut-out birds. With the help of my sisters (over Thanksgiving) I cut out over 200 birds from really cool double-sided scrapbook paper that hung from twigs on the eating tables, food tables and Christmas tree. I wish I took some pictures, it really looked cool. Anyway, I kept the birds that matched my tree. I love them. Here is the template I used to trace the birds (look for the Bird Template link). I cut the legs off because I didn't want to spend that much time cutting out the detail... also, I resized each bird into 4 different sizes so there was some variety.


I am already excited for next year! I hope to add a little something more to my tree each year!