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Easy Tree-sy

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Nothing gets me jump-started in the Christmas mood like setting up our tree.  Although I must warn you – our Christmas tree is sooo easy that you will want to go out and buy one just like it immediately.  It takes a TOTAL of 5 minutes to set up.  I know…you are colored wintergreen with jealousy right now.  I would be too if I were you. 

So here was our den prior to tree setup…

Now everyone start your stopwatches….AND GO:

  

And STOP! 

See, less than 5 minutes.  The best part is…wrapped it with lights three years ago and haven’t had a problem yet.  I thought we had a strand go out this year so I got out a spare and started wrapping…only to discover that it wasn’t plugged in all the way.  So our light count went from 3200 to 3600.  That is how we do lighting here in the dirty south – BURN-YOUR-RETINAS-BIG.

And for all you people that are wondering, each branch that hangs down is individually wrapped…and then I plug it into a couple power strips that are attached to the main stem.  That way – we just reach into the center of the tree and push the button on the strips to turn on all the lights at once. 

After we had it set up and fully lit…I decided that I wanted to do a classic white, silver and gold color scheme again.  Last year I did this and loved it.  Plus, it would look simple but elegant for any potential house-buyers that toured the place (plus, it isn’t visually distracting from the room features like the fireplace.  Hey it’s hard to be a distraction when you can partially blind people!). 

The first thing I did was the ribbon.  I like our tree but sometimes it looks a little tall and skinny to me…so I add horizontal ribbons to make it a little heftier.  This year, I did LOADS of horizontal ribbon….alternating between silver sparkly and semi-see-through golden with glitter.  

Then I just covered the entire thing with our silver, champagne and golden ornaments.  I love how super sparkly the entire thing is….it is like a visit from Tinkerbell.

We did our disco ball tree topper again.  This might be the last time we can use this thing since we hook it into the ceiling to hang it and the new house has taller ceilings so it wouldn’t work.  We just loop a piece of ribbon into the giant ornament’s hanger and then create a big ole poofy bow (here’s a how-to video on bow-making) to the cuphook in the ceiling. 

Some of you asked about taking photos of your tree and how I do it.  Well, I turn on all the lights in the room and on the tree and take them during the day.  Then I make sure my white balance is set to tungsten.  My f-stop is usually around 3.2 if I am doing a full-shot so that I can get all the details in.  Then I just adjust the ISO and shutter speed accordingly.  If you have issues with not getting enough light…this is when it is a good idea to whip out the tripod. 

I love the different sparkly ornaments – the smaller disco balls, the glittered ornaments, the plain silver and the mini mercury glass ornaments.  I am obsessed with mercury glass this holiday…if only we weren’t thinking of moving….I would be up to my eyeballs in mercuryballs.

Of course, we have some ornaments that are super sentimental…like this old bride & groom one we got as a wedding present.  A guest used it to jazz up the outside of the wedding gift…isn’t that a cute idea?   And last year we got a letter B that we painted white and hung up to represent BOWER & BABY & BOY & BAHAMAS (some of the big events of 2009). 

Of course, we have a special ornament for this year that we’ll be sharing later.  Plus a few homemade ones that we crafted up in our spare time 🙂 

Do you guys celebrate each year with a special ornament?  Perhaps each kid gets to pick out their own?  Or maybe you buy one for someone special each holiday season?  Oh and because I wanna see each and everyone of your Christmas trees – I thought I would take my girl Sarah’s lead over at ThriftyDecorChick and create a little linky party.  This way we can get in the ornamental-mood together 🙂

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  6. Re: your white, silver and gold color scheme – plus, they’re GT colors! This ramblin’ wreck from Georgia Tech loves it!

  7. I do a silver ribbon on my white, silver, and blue themed tree, but I don’t think it is going up this year. 🙁 Love your tree.

  8. I sure hope you’ve had that up for a bit… Christmas is in less than 2 weeks! 🙂 (of course I MUST put mine up the Friday after Thanksgiving, so anything seems late to me). We’ve never really done the “ornament a year”, but this year I decided I’m going to start getting the “girls” a special one each year and when they leave the house they’ll have a few ornaments to get them started. So, this year my almost 3 year old got one as one of her advent gifts and next year we’ll start with No. 2. I think it will be so fun to look back and see what they were loving that particular year. This year it was Jessie from Toy Story.

  11. How gorgeous! What size ribbon did you use, it’s perfect on the tree and I would love to replicate next year! Also, where do you look for holiday decor – ribbon, ornaments, decor? I love Christmas, but don’t want to break the bank with the decor and you are so amazingly thrifty!

  12. I am having some trouble ordering the prints of the doors. For some reason, I cant purchase them. Let me know what I should do….love the picts by the way! Julie

  14. Hi Erica,
    I used three inch wire ribbon…it comes in a giant spool at Hobby Lobby & usually is 50% off. I think this tree took about 2 spools (1 gold and 1 silver)…so it ended up costing under $10 for all the ribbon. I bought it a long time ago (after Christmas sale when it was 75% off) but they still have loads of choices.
    xo – kb

  15. Yeah Julie….we’ve had it up since the weekend after Thanksgiving. It took us a little longer to get the rest of the house decorated but we don’t take it down until well into January so we get lots of Christmasy time with it 🙂
    xo – kb

  17. Sweet! I make some ornaments for each of my kids each year. My mom used to do this for us when my sisters and I were younger and I love pulling out those memories each year. 🙂

  18. Oh . . . and just thought I’d toss out there that I used to be that person at the Hob-Lob that set up ALL the Christmas tree displays in the district AND made ALL the tree topper bows. Man that was a lot of work. Definitely do not miss fluffing fake trees. My coworker and I used to put knee socks on our arms to minimize scratching.

  19. Did the paper work for the new house go thru?

    i ask coz ” We did our disco ball tree topper again. This might be the last time we can use this thing since we hook it into the ceiling to hang it and the new house has taller ceilings so it wouldn’t work.”

    if its a done deal then … CONGRATULATIONS !!!

    s.g.s

  21. Love the ribbon! I will also be using this post as evidence to show my husband that our tree would look WAY cooler if we added more strands of lights! 🙂

  24. Hi Katie,

    Your tree is absolutely beautiful!!! But I have one question…where did you get your white window panels? Love them!

  27. My old boss gave it to us when he moved outta state. I haven’t seen another like it but if I do, I’ll let you know!
    xo – kb

  28. How do you wrap the ribbon around the tree? I bought spools of ribbon at Hobby Lobby a while ago, but can’t get it to look right. I even asked the salespeople there how they did it, but no one would really explain it to me. Care to share any tips/instructions?

  29. Hi Amy,
    Watch my tablesetting video with Sherry (the old one) and see how I got the curly ribbon…then use that same pulling technique to wrap the curled ribbon around the tree. Just go round and round and stuff it inside branches 🙂
    xo – kb

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