Its no surprise that my favorite holiday is Christmas. There is a lot to post about this season, But we will start with the first thing on my Xmas To – Do List : Putting up the tree!!!!
What Is my Tree Decorating process:
- Setting up the Tree. The Tree is fake, of course, as I am in Colombia (and even if I could get a real one, i just couldn’t be bothered with the mess)
- Putting up the Lights. My lights are White – always White for me. It’s a personal taste, but I really don’t like colored lights. Additionally, keeping them white means that there is much more that I can do with the decorations without it looking too crowded. Last year I did just cool white lights. This year I mixed two set of white lights, cool and warm lights, and it gave it a cool effect
- Decorations:I am not a fan of perfectly looking trees that look out of a magazine. I like it to look real, and homemade. For me that means mixing different types of things, keeping it eclectic. I tend to have decorations collected for over 10 years, and try to mix and match as much as possible. most of my decorations are a mix between figurines and colored balls and bows. The Decorating of the tree has a few steps:
- 1. I think of my ornaments as consisting of categories, therefore before I begin I like to separate them all in those categories, to see what I have to work with. This is not only to see, but because I don’t like similar ornaments to be together, so that way I can spread them around the tree. The Categories this year were (you can see the pictures below):
- Disney: One of my favorite stores in the world has to be the Days of Christmas store in downtown Disney. I have gathered quite a bit of ornaments from here. Additionally hallmark also makes great Disney themed figurines that I love, especially the Winnie the Pooh ones
- Anthropologie: I have gathered the anthropologie ornaments throughout the years, their christmas stuff is great, super original. my garlands are from there, all knitted and in fabulous colors. My ornaments from here are mostly items of clothing or little dolls (as you can see in the pictures). not only are they beautiful, but their color scheme matches really well with my tree and house (which has a lot of pink!)
- Random Hallmark: These are all the beautiful hallmark ornaments, that don’t have a specific category. I think Hallmark ornaments are the best, I am a bit obsessed with them, and always look forward to January when they go on sale and further stock up my collection.
- Gone with The wind & wizard of Oz – These are from Hallmark, and since they are two of my favorite movies, I hold them dear to my heart
- Cooking & Food – These are fun and pretty! and christmas feel like food time to me so they hold great prominence in my tree. I love my Starbucks cups, and I have a Hallmark coffee cup that smells. After 5 years of buying it it still smells like coffee, its great! Most of these are also from Hallmark, with Starbuck Collaboration
- Barbie Full Disclosure: I am a huge Barbie fan. I have a significant Barbie collection (i should do a blog about this) and therefore that’s why there is a Barbie category! all these ornaments are a Barbie & Hallmark collaboration – I love the vintage dolls as well as my trees of shoes.
- Harrods: Harrods brings back very strong memories of my childhood. My parents used to go to London every November, and bring with them the annual Christmas Bear tree ornament, that had the year on it. Up to today my parents house tree is full of Harrods ornaments. I have just a few, but love them dearly.
- Fillers: Fillers, although not as fancy or pretty as my figurines are key components on the look of the tree. It is also where you tell the color story. What do I have:
- Colored Glass Balls: There is no ornament more traditional than the traditional christmas glass balls. For my tree I have them in a number of presentations. mostly in the pink family, I have large, medium and tiny ones. There are also plain glass, with sparkles and disco balls. as complementary colors I have some silver, black and blue ones.
- Bows: I like to make my own bows, and they last quite a while. currently in my tree I have two types of bows that I made myself, pink and silver, and gold ones with stars. Making your own bows is really simple and thy give great personality to the tree (and help cover holes). The key to making your own bows is buying ribbon that has metallic border, that way they hold in place.
- Garlands: I have two small ones, both from anthropologie.
- 1. I think of my ornaments as consisting of categories, therefore before I begin I like to separate them all in those categories, to see what I have to work with. This is not only to see, but because I don’t like similar ornaments to be together, so that way I can spread them around the tree. The Categories this year were (you can see the pictures below):
- 2. I place the garlands first, so that they appear behind the figurines
- 3. The figurines come next, and I begin placing them in the tree by categories, putting the ones I like the most, as well as the newer ones on the front
- 4. Once all the figures are in place, I fill all the remaining spaces with balls, and bows, to make sure that there is no evident empty space in the tree.
The Final Product
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