Five Ways To Have A Decorator Style Christmas Tree

Hi, Friends,

How are you? I hope you are staying well and that you are staying encouraged.

I have some tips for you so that you can have a wonderful decorator looking Christmas tree while still using your collected family ornaments. 

No. 1 

The most important thing you can do to get a decorator look for your tree, is to fluff your tree once it is set up. 

It takes a while. It's a pain in the neck, The branches are scratchy. You might cry. 

You can have the cutest and most bestest ornaments in the world but if the tree is wonky looking after a summer in the attic, it will diminish the look of the bestest ornaments in the world. 

(Blogger is letting me know with their annoying red line that bestest isn't a word.)

This is true for wreaths and garlands as well. 

Take a few minutes to fluff them so that they look as good as new. 

This is probably why I'll get dissatisfied with my older decor items. They look old and used because they have been crushed over time. Now is a good time to use florist tape to fix picks that are coming apart. New trees need to be fluffed as well. I mean they have made a long journey to get here. They may have been made and boxed a year ago. 

No. 2

Check your lighting. If the lights are out on a pre-lit tree, I find it is best to cut them out and restring the whole tree. Instead of grabbing a random strand from the garage, get new matching light strings so that the top of the tree matches the bottom of the tree. 

It is the worst if a section goes out mid December. Okay, not the worst but you get the idea.  

Add a string of novelty lights for fun. I've been into lights that have a twinkle feature. 

I love, love battery operated candles. 

No. 3

The tree is fluffed and the lights are working. 

It is ribbon time. 

I cannot express how important the ribbon is to a designer looking tree. 

It took me some practice to get it right, so don't give up. 

I always start at the top right hand side and pinch the end of the ribbon with a branch to secure it to the tree. I prefer to use new ribbon each year. The older ribbon is used on packages and other decorations. I do not cut my ribbon into sections. I keep it in one continuous piece until I get to the bottom of the tree. My ribbon always cascades down to tree toward the left. After a couple of feet, I'll go across and up the back of the tree and begin another drape. Random Shirley Temple type ringlets are formed with the ribbon in between the sections. The ribbon gets tucked into the tree periodically so that it doesn't look like the ribbon is laying across the front. 

Imagine a sash across the homecoming queen. You are making a couple of those type of passes across the front of the tree depending on the size of the tree. 

If I'm using two coordinating ribbons, I'll do them at the same time.  

That being said, there are fabulous ribbon tutorials on YouTube. 

I think David Christopher's  is one of the best for adding ribbons. They are an adorable couple so the videos are entertaining.  

No. 4

Now is the time to add additional garlands or picks as accents to the Christmas tree. 

However, it can be expensive. Shop around but Dollar Tree has little bushes that can be cut apart. 

I like my accent greenery to come out of the tree a little. Garlands cascade down and around in the same pattern as the ribbon. 

For the tree in our garden room, I used grapevine from our woods, thrifted black berries picks, and blue berry bushes from the floral section at Hobby Lobby. 

You could stop at this point and have a gorgeous designer looking tree but ornaments are my favorite part. 

No. 5

I love collecting ornaments. They have been collected over time so they don't all match. 

Many of the designer trees have matching ornament sets in a variety of sizes. I don't love that for our trees. I want to use our vintage and collected ornaments. 

Ours can be grouped into several different themes, however. 

That is why I have several trees. I like grouping ornaments together. 

Grouping ornaments to a theme helps it have more of a designer look. 

That being said, the eyes will rest a little if there are matching ornaments on the tree. 

I found these darling red striped homespun balls at Hobby Lobby. 

I think they are adorable. 

I hope this helps unless you already have decorated your tree. If that's the case, bookmark this for next year. 

I get a lot of compliments on my trees. I think a lot people want an expensive look for Christmas but they don't know how to achieve it.  Breaking down why a tree looks designer has helped me create some fun and beautiful Christmas trees. 

That is all for now. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. 

Katie 

Simplifying Our Christmas Decorations

Hi, Friends,

How are you? I hope you are doing well.

I did it. I think I've finished decorating for Christmas. 

I'll give you a few sneak peaks. 

I have successfully simplified my decor. 

I have fewer chotskies on display. Those that made the cut are my favorite things. They happen to all be in soft greens, whites, or blue with only pops of red in the kitchen and dining room. 

This year, I opted for boxwood garland instead of traditional pine. 

This will eliminate all the shedding and it is really beautiful even though it is faux. 

I'll add some ribbons after Thanksgiving. 

The garlands all came from Hobby Lobby as well. I think they were $24.99 in the store. I waited until they were on sale. They are cheaper on the website but there'd be shipping.  

 I think that I bought three to augment what I already had.  

I have plenty of boxwood in the yard to clip for pitchers. 

I may add something else to the mantel but I'm not sure what yet. 

 I ditched the big tree and I'm very happy about it. It took about a week to make the decision. 

 I gave it to a friend who was not going to put up a tree this year. Instead, I picked up a slim tree from Hobby Lobby. It is the 7.5 ft. Slim Arizona Fir Pre-Lit Christmas Tree. It has the thin more realistic looking branches. 

It was easy to put up and it fits nicely in the corner. We don't have to move any furniture for this tree. I never liked removing a chair to put up the Christmas tree.  

This is the third year that I've used blue and white ribbon. We've had the picks for about five years. 

There are two other skinny trees at this house. One in the dining room and one in the garden room. 

 We will have a six foot tree at the house in East Texas if I put it up. 

The tree in the garden room has a new theme and I am smitten with it. 

I'll show that room in a post of its own.

I'm defying all blogging norms and ditching the hot cocoa bar as well. 

Please do not report me. 

Last year, our decorations were all about evoking a feeling of nostalgia. I think that was important. There was a lot of red plaid everywhere. However, it didn't replace what was lost and it only made me feel sad. I pulled it all down on Christmas day. 

This year less is appropriate somehow. 

I'm not sure why except that I want no reminders of last year. 

We won't know if our decision to pull back from all our activities last year was the correct one. 

It felt like we were the crazy ones although my extended family was on the same page. 

We've been pretty selective about stepping back into a "normal" routine and adding activities back into our schedule. Although, it was lonely at times, occasionally it was freeing to scale life way back to bare bones. Scaling back our decor feels cleaner and less complicated. I know it took less time to do.  I hope I like it more. I've never been one to pack up our regular decor for holiday stuff. Adding touch here and there is fun and festive and it can be done all the way up to Christmas Day. As we add activities back to our routine, I hope that we enjoy them more too instead of taking them for granted. 

There are a few favorite knick knacks still packed away. We will see what else is put out the next few weeks.

The Garden Answer YouTube channel inspired the living arrangement in the photo above. I love it. 

That is all for now. 

Have a wonderful weekend. 

Katie

Crafting A Primitive Christmas

Hi, Friends,

How are you? I hope you are doing well.

I never thought that I'd alter my Christmas habits because of a cat but never say never. 

This cat, as you know, has captured our hearts. She is the first inside kitty that we have ever had. 

The last time we had a new kitty, he decided to climb the Christmas tree. He broke some adorable vintage red gingham Shiny Brites. 

I forgave but I did not forget. 

My collection of antique ornaments is not as large as it used to be but I got into Lenox ornaments the year that my little brother had his stroke. Searching for one for each year of our marriage was a really good distraction during that sad time. Antique shops, eBay and thrift stores yielded good dated ornaments. 

Bill gets me one or two every Christmas to add to the collection. Can you imagine a tree full of Lenox ornaments hitting the ground? 

I began to think of other ways to display those so that they are kitty cat safe. 

I'll show you if it works out. 

When we got the dry sink for out in East Texas, I began surfing Pinterest for all things primitive. 

So many cute things caught my eye and I began crafting Christmas ornaments for a kitty safe tree. 

I mixed up some applesauce, cinnamon, and glue to make a yummy smelling dough. My co-worker and I did this once about 25 years ago. It was such a mess with my pre-schoolers that I vowed we would never to do that again. Well, never say never. This was still a horrendous, sticky mess but the ornaments came out super cute.  

Never sort through your cookie cutters in June. You will inadvertently get rid of a cute gingerbread man shape. 

The candies came all tied together, I cut them apart and aged them a bit with antiquing wax. 

I tied some together with baker's twine to make a darling garland. 

If you search for Primitive Christmas crafts on Pinterest a darling stocking appears.

I picked up a package of children's socks at Walmart and gave them a grungy coffee and cinnamon treatment. The house smelled good that day too. 

I love these. I stuffed them with old greens and berries that were slated for the give away pile. 

The red and white gingham candy cane came from Etsy. 

I saw a darling sign while I was perusing the internet. 

It took me 23 million hours but I saved $39.00! 

I made some jolly fabric gingerbread men. 

Again it took 23 million hours. I'm really picky about faces, apparently, but 

I think that I've finally figured them out. 

The thrift store yielded some little cottages that needed a gingerbread motif. 

Sarah from She Hold Dearly did this on her YouTube channel with little tin houses. 

So, so cute. 

The little houses were 50 cents each. The glitter was 23 million dollars. 

Craft supplies aren't cheap. I was out of a lot of craft supplies this year. 

I'd been crafting for a few weeks but I still wasn't sure how it would all play out together.

In the end, I'm going for a very red and white French Country meets American Primitive look. 

I love red and white around my birthday, so we already have a pretty good collection of red and white French inspired accessories. 

I can't wait to put this all together.  

That is all for now, my friends.

I hope I've inspired you to get crafting.  

Katie 

Our Country House Anniversary

Hi, Friends,

I hope you are well!

Is there fall weather where you are? I hope so. Our leaves have just a tiny bit of color. 

I hope we are in for some pretty russet tones in the next couple of weeks. 

We just had the first anniversary of our country house purchase.  

This post is about two weeks late because it's been a complicated post to write. 

If you have been following, you will know that we were able to buy our little house in the country last year. 
It was a dream come true and we were in a honeymoon faze about it for a long time. 

The house hurt my feelings and I was over it. 

It was time to sell, blow it up, give it away. 

I fell out of love and broke up with it. 

The honeymoon was over! 

There are some things that we love about country life but there are some things that we really don't love. 

I was kidding about all of the options above. We still love it but we are a little more realistic about country life. 

There have been times, in the last year, that we thought about selling our house in town and moving to the country full time. Bill's commute will not allow that. As things have opened back up, he has to spend time at the office in Dallas. The commute from our house out there is 3 hours one way. 

That's not do-able at all. After his working from home for the last year, I don't love how much time he is away during the week. 

Even if that were not the case, the things that we don't love about the country have given us pause. 

Sugar sand is what they call it. It sticks to everything. 

The issues that I thought would be a problem are not. 

I noticed the sand the day of the showing. The sandy soil was crazy at first and I swept constantly. The driveway apron has eliminated most of that problem. We aren't in and out as much since our inside projects are finished for now. I don't have to sweep as much anymore. Grass has also helped with the sand. Inside shoes and outside shoes has also been a good protocol to follow. 

I also asked the realtor about the road. We live on a farm to market road. It is a road that is trafficked by all types of vehicles during the weekend. Trucks travel to the other towns on our road. I thought it would bother me. It doesn't at all. We aren't far from a major highway in town and that sounds like a hum during rush hour. This isn't like that but at this point we don't notice it. Dixie bolted out of the door toward the road after some deer two weeks ago. Bill yelled for her to stop and she did. 

Other than that she is very obedient and never goes toward the road. 

Our neighbors have some junk. They are so nice that it doesn't really bother me too much.

"Is that Coors Beer sign being used as a dog shelter?" 

We have had some unexpected expenses but we went into it knowing that there would be expenses with a second house. So it isn't like a "lake mistake" where were unaware that there would be costs involved.  We went in fully aware that there would be unexpected issues arise. 

The well is under the little green cover. 

We had some well issues. Those were easily fixed. We had the water tested. It does weird things to my hair when I have to wash it out there. Fortunately, I don't have to wash it everyday. We don't let the pets drink it either. Bladder issues with the well interfered with watering which fried my garden. That was a low point but my plants were grown from seeds. There is always next year. 

 

I am not overly squeamish but the scorpions nearly did me in. 

There was a day that I found three ticks on the dog and a scorpion in the house. It was not a happy day. 

I don't love the feeling that I can't walk around barefoot especially in the middle of the night.

 I want to walk in our woods without worrying too much about the ticks. The cutter ants were a nasty surprise. We also have gophers. There are just more bugs and critters out there than I expected. 

The exterminator will be coming out quarterly. 

There is not much he can do about the ferrel hogs. 

We thought we would be able to share our house more but Covid has prevented us from spending time out there in the country with friends and family. Bill and I both have a gift for hospitality. It took time to get ready but it's been ready to share for a long time and we are ready to open our doors.   

It is beautiful and bucolic at our house in East Texas. There are pine forests and rolling hills. There are charming looking farms. 

Bill and I watch different YouTube channels. On most of them, farm life may be a little over glorified. 

There are realities and one reality of farm life and farm land are the farm smells.

Sometimes we smell cows. Sometimes we smell chickens. 

 I think it is a dairy which opened on some land a mile or so behind us. Sometimes we smell something else which is not definable. There are regulations with TCEQ but we have no idea if individuals are following guidelines set by the state. What do we do if they are not? 

If we lived out there full time a smelly day wouldn't be a big deal but we bought this house to enjoy the outdoor spaces. A smelly Saturday is unfortunate. A smelly Saturday if friends are out is embarrassing.  A smelly day in addition to ticks and scorpions puts me in a bad mood. 

East Texas is cooler but more humid than in town. It seemed like there were more smelly days during the growing season than in the fall and winter last year so it's not been the summer escape place that we'd hoped. 

In spite of all of this, we have had some magical wonderful weekends. This past weekend was picture perfect. 

We had some friends come out to help us clear some paths in the woods. 

This filled my emotional tank. 

Bill and I had begun to wonder what in the world we were doing. 

It was such a blessing to see our little place through someone else's eyes and have them grasp our vision for it. 

 We cut probably a quarter of a mile which is such a great step toward having trails through the woods. 

I was blessed beyond measure to have people come along side us to help us accomplish this task. 

 

The rose colored glasses may have fallen off.

 They always do.

 We just keep moving forward toward our five year plan. 

It's why we made a long term plan. 

Our house in town is too big for just the two of us. 

Our house in East Texas is just a tad too small. 

I have come to realization that I'm more of a planner than I thought. I want to know what the future holds but I don't and that is okay. 

For now, we will enjoy our weekends out of town. 

We will light a fire in the fire box and hope the burning wood masks some of the farm smells on a bad day. 

We will continue to open our doors and share our little house. 

We will enjoy our house in town during the week.  

Where we end up when Bill retires is a mystery. 

 I'll have a post soon about a few changes to the interior. 

That is all for now.

Blessings, 

Katie