Last year when I was putting away our Christmas decorations, I realized that they seemed a bit tired, so I vowed to revamp and refresh things this year. I have had a very fun time. Speaking of revamping, I have a friend (who will remain nameless) that really revamped her Christmas decorations one year. Instead of decorating her tree with all her traditional ornaments, she decorated her tree with nothing but purple and teal birds. Her grown-up children went bulistic. The revamping I was thinking of isn't quite that extreme.
Here are a few ideas that may help you revamp this year:
Dress Up Your Tree
One Christmas season I was at Juliet Kienhle's from Newport Beach and I was struck by how beautiful her tree was. The thing that made it extra beautiful was the ribbon that she had swirled around it. I decided to swirl my tree that year too and have swirled every since. Here's how you do it:
Step 1. Buy around 8 yards of very wide ribbon for a smaller tree and 10 yards for a larger tree. (I seem to keep learning the hard way that It's better to get too much than too little.)
Step 2. Put your lights on your tree. I have found the more lights the more beautiful. (Look at Juliet's.)
Step 3. Wrap the ribbon around the tree in a sort of candy cane pattern starting at the top (I tuck the beginning inside our big star)
Step 4. Add your ornaments.
Christmas Stars
Recently I talked to my friend Lara Lanfried also from Newport Beach. She said that she puts autumn leaves on her tree and that they look beautiful with the white lights. Since I am such a gold and glittery type, I had to add gold and glitter. (Frequently, Linda, my favorite checker at the grocery store, asks me why I have paint on my hands and glitter all over my face? ) Anyway here's how you make them:
Step 1. Gather Autumn leaves and spray them with shellac to make sure they don't whither as much. (Let dry.)
Step. 2 Spray each leaf with either gold, rose gold or silver spray paint. Lara said this combo is really in. (Heck if I know.) Another option is spraying all the leaves one color.
Step 3. While the spray paint is still wet, sprinkle the leaves with glitter. (I like the fine stuff.)
Step 4.. Bundle 6 of the leaves starting with the smaller ones to make a beautiful star. Using masking tape, tape the stems of the bundle where they meet the leaves and go down.
**These stars will look great on your Christmas tree, Christmas wreaths or even in flower arrangements.
Mirror Wreath
The other day I was looking at my my walls and noticed that I had nothing Christmasy on any one of them. I thought to myself, wreaths--that's the answer! By now you've probably gathered that I'm wreath crazy. Well the question was, what kind of wreath and where? I wanted to go with gold over my mantle. So here's what I did.
Step 1. I went to my local craft store (Michael's) and got a grapevine wreath
Step 2. I also bought some foliage that I could work with (As I have said in an earlier blog. it takes time to get just the right materials, so you may have to look and look till you get what you like.)
Step 3. I then arranged the foliage on the wreath, so I could plan where to put things. In my case I took the foliage apart and just used some. (See below.)
Step 4. I then sprayed some of the foliage gold. (In this case I sprayed my the leaves gold.)
Step 5. With a hot glue gun I glued the foliage onto the wreath.
Opt. Step 6. Finally I hammered a nail into the top of my mirror and hung the wreath with a ribbon. Voila!
And Yet More Wreaths
The top of our piano is filled with Santa Clauses, so I made a red and green wreath for that spot. My daughter, Carly, said that my first design was kitch which I think means tacky, so I went about trying to come up with something else. I decided to wrap the whole wreath with a long red ribbon, then I added a bow. (See steps below for making the "perfect bow". I really don't try to rhyme it just comes out that way.)
The Perfect Bow
Step 1. Get two kinds of wired ribbon and put one kind on top of the other.
Step 2. Begin making the bow by making loops on both sides and holding the center.
Step 3. Cut one type of ribbon and continue with one more loop on each side with the ribbon that's left.
Step 4. Using about 10 inches of ribbon tie the center of the bow tightly, then spread out the parts of the bow and fluff it up. There you have the perfect bow!
Happy Decorating!