Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Our First Christmas: Our Trees

Husband and I have been married for exactly 11 months today. Even though 11 months is quite a ways away from our wedding and we were almost married by this time last year, this is our first married Christmas whether it feels like it or not!

I'm hoping to get a few posts up about all of our decorations, and maybe even a few of our new traditions. Today, I'm showing off our trees, our fake Christmas trees. I know a lot of you put up real ones, but fake just last so much longer, and mine are so pretty this year that I pretty much never want to take them down.


It's not short, I was reaching over the dining table :)
 Our main tree used to live under the archway between our living room and dining room. It also used to be covered in red, white, black, and silver ornaments. Since we've been married we've bought a new couch that has a chaise sitting right where the tree would normally go and we've changed our room's colors from all neutral grays, white and black that I would add pops of red to for Christmas, to teal, green, and gold.

Here's a (grainy) shot of the old set up. I think this was my first year living in this house!



Since the chaise now sits under that window now and the red and silver wouldn't work, we ended up putting the main tree in the dining room and getting all new ornaments. Husband cared less about the ornaments, but I had a good time with him picking them out together.

Some close ups of my favorites...
Sparkly deep teal flowers

Bright green glass balls with drips that remind me of our drip art in the living room.

Silver with a band of gold and silver sparkles that tie in the silver we still have all over the house.

These little red guys came in a package with some teal, green, and gold ornaments and they charmed us enough to convince us to add a few pops of read all over our main living area.

I already had these black and white ornaments - they're probably 6 years old! I love how they tie into our new black and white rug. By the way, we got a new dining room rug.

On top of the black and white ornaments I had to add a few other past favorites. I dug through this bin of red and silver stuff...



 ...and pulled out these favorites:



Angel wings that my mom gave me a couple years ago, and a few other fuzzy ornaments that I think look a little like snow of the branches, and three silver stars that say faith, hope, and love. Whichever I feel represents where I'm at spiritually each year gets put in the front where I'll see it most. Last year it was love since I was about to get married, this year it's faith. Because I just need a little more of it. It's a great reminder of where our focus should be this holiday season!

My story doesn't end there, if you noticed, my title said trees. Since the main tree had to be moved to a place where there was space for it, the area where it used to be was looking a little dark. So we put up a second tree on the end table next to the chaise!


This little guy was about $12 from Old Time Pottery. We found some little sparkly ornaments in teal, green, gold, and red in the dollar bins at Target, and I added some of the gold snowflake ornaments we had leftover from the big tree. $3 in wired ribbon to tie in with the main tree and we had a little sparkle next to the chaise!

Since putting up the trees, my new couch spot is the chaise - check out this view and you'll see why:


And at night...



Not that I didn't love my red and silver decorations from way back when, but I looove these! It probably has something to do with the fact that we added 200 lights because half of the pre-lit tree was dead this year. It shimmers now!

That tree skirt, by the way, I made it myself. I probably should have done a tutorial on it. I had no idea it'd turn out at all so nice so I didn't take pictures as I went. But basically I folded 1 yard of teal fabric like this. Then I cut strips of green fabric and sewed them together to make one long strip of fabric. It's about 5-6 inches wide and 12-15 feet long (depends on how ruffle-y you want it). I hot glued it to the teal fabric pinching it into ruffles as I went, and then hot glued fancy gold ribbon on top of that to hide all the rough edges. I was simple, and I'd be happy to answer any questions if you want to make your own.

As great as the trees look, I still have a few crafts to tackle before I call it quits with the Christmas decorating. Tonight I'm making a cone tree forest - wish me luck! If all goes well, I'll try to get a tutorial on that up soon. 

How is your tree looking this year? Anyone else going a little crazy with multiple trees?