More Trees

While I was working on some more cone Christmas trees I went back to the first one I did, pictured below, and added some more painted shells and twine to make it a little more beachy. Now to get the stench out of the cabinets... I somehow missed a critter living in one of the shells that I found at the beach a couple weeks ago. Can we say Eww Holy Grossness! I don't have a room designated to crafts so I had the shells in ziplocks in a "craft cabinet" in the kitchen and boy did it stink. I'm not sure how I missed it when I was cleaning the shells but I sure won't make that mistake again! YUCK!



Now here's the big Christmas tree below, all decked out. Yay! I enjoy decorating for Christmas but am not one to put tons of stuff everywhere. The house is already cluttered enough and I just don't like to store too much. I'm afraid if much more goes in the attic, it will end up falling through the garage ceiling onto our cars. ;) Not really but I do try to limit what we store.



With Christmas decor, my main focus is on the tree, the mantel, and the front yard and I just try and spruce it up little by little each year. Here are some pictures of the tree. I'd say it's whimsical but that the ribbon makes it more formal looking. Over the years I've added on small touches. A couple of years ago I started sticking in these silver swirly, glittery branches from the floral section at Michaels and then more floral pieces that came from Pier One. If you do this, just try not to poke your eye out as you walk towards the tree to gaze over it! This year I added the blue snowflakes. Thank goodness it's up!

Below are a couple more styrafoam trees. I painted the foam cones blue just like the first one and I made these so you can see through to the blue paint a little. It gives a wintry cold look. I used the silver garland again, and shiny silver glass ornament balls this time, $1.00 for an 8 pack at Dollar Tree.



Topped with Snowflake!

All you have to do is remove the hooks and glue the tops of the ornaments and give them a twist when pressing them into the the foam. Make sure the balls are flush with the styrafoam. Just be careful b/c they are breakable and are liable to shatter. I would have used plastic shatterproof ball ornaments but all the plastic ones I found had a fine line where they were pieced together when they were made and I didn't think they would look right exposed. I used blue round crafters stones and wrapped each tree in thin, glittery silver ribbon (4 rolls of ribbon were $1.00 at AC Moore) and topped one with a snowflake and one with a star, each $1.00 a piece.

Topped with a Star!

They make a great flashy centerpiece and add a vintage flair! All are very reasonable. Each cost less than $7.00 to make!



A Shot of Trees in the Dark. :)