Artistic Christmas Trees and Ideas

Christmas Trees

 

Family Room Christmas Tree

 Each year at the Jerry home, we have two decorated Christmas trees.  Both trees are eight foot tall.  The first and fullest tree is in the family room.  Each year, silk poinsettias form a swirl on the tree, which looks pretty with or without the lights.

The Christmas Tree - My Humble Home and Garden

Christmas Story Tree

   The Christmas Story tree is displayed on the catwalk, which overlooks the family room and the foyer, which has a second story window.  The tree is visible from the street.

The Christmas Story Tree - My Humble Home and Garden

 Each year, the tree in the family room has silk poinsettias, which form a swirl on the tree.   This tree looks pretty with or without the lights, which you can see in one of the pictures. 

 Christmas Tree on My Humble Home and Garden

  One year, I left the poinsettias off to be different and caught grief from my youngest daughter, so it has become the tradition to include poinsettias on the tree.

   There are 22 sets of lights on this tree! They are wrapped around every branch!   It takes about one day to cart the tree, two sections at a time, from the basement to the family room, set it up and put the lights on it.  At the end of the day, I always plug the lights in and just enjoy the beauty of over 2200 twinkling lights. (Some sets are 150 and some are 100.)

   Each year, we bought Christmas ornaments for each of the kids and they are displayed on this tree.  It brings back so many memories of vacations, where we found unique ornaments and memories of Christmas past.

  We have discontinued that, since the kids are grown, and someday, we will be passing their respective ornaments onto each of them, so they will have lovely memories as they decorate their own trees, too.

The Christmas Story Tree - My Humble Home and Garden

   The Christmas Story tree is displayed on the catwalk, which overlooks the family room and the foyer, which has a second story window.  The tree is visible from the street.  

 

   I saw this idea in a book a long time ago and just loved the idea.  When I worked at the local bank, I was allowed to decorate the lobby for Christmas one year.  There was not a lot of money available for decorations, so this idea was perfect!

 

  Using sheets of 8.5″ x 14″ copy paper, I printed out the Christmas Story in Old English type.   I could usually get two verses to a sheet since they are printed lengthwise  (landscape) on the paper.  Then,  the type was cut out into strips, leaving a margin around the words.

 

   Wanting the strips to look antiqued, a couple at a time were placed in a baking tray.  Tea bags, which had been soaked in boiling hot water, were used to blot tea stain onto the lettered strips of paper until the desired effect was achieved.  They were left to air dry, and if needed, blotted again with the tea bags.

 

  Once the strips were dry, the edges were painted with a dark brown acrylic paint, so the paper looked worn and torn. 

 The Christmas Story Tree on My Humble Home and Garden

  The papers were flat, so each was curled over the edge of the counter, to give the paper a little curve. (This is the same concept as curling a ribbon with scissors. You can see the before and after in the pictures to the left.) The ends were curled in the opposite direction of the middle.

 DIY The Christmas Story Tree on My Humble Home and Garden

   The tree was a hit, and one customer asked if she could have the whole story!  For such a minimal cost, the effect is really rich looking when the glow from the lights illuminates the ochre colored papers.

 

   Obviously, I have kept the papers and decorate our tree with them, each year, reading and enjoying the story, as it is woven around, in and out of the branches on our tree.

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