at Sophie’s Cottage! I’ve got NINE fully decorated trees all set up, and adding other Christmas products every day! Here are a few of the trees:
Read on for details of each tree!
Sophie’s favorite color Christmas tree!
CHRISTMAS 2007
Sophie just LOVES this metallic lime green Christmas tree with turquoise and aqua ornaments!
The blue and green garlands set the tome for the color theme of the tree. They would look great draped across a mantle or swagged across a window too!
Closer look at some of the ornaments: (are those turquoise feather ball ornaments FABULOUS or what?!?!)
The painted cutout wood words and glitter stars add varying textures to the tree:
A blue tin star on the top and a BIG glittery twisty vine thingy up the center of the tree. I really like adding ‘one big thing’ to the front and center of trees for more interest.
Mistletoe Princess doll:
A basket full of pretty beaded ornaments:
A few gift items nestled under the tree.
A lime green bottle brush tree: (I SO love the way lime green plays off the varying shades of turquoise!)
Giant sized green ball ornaments and pale aqua tin stars:
Ivory beach themed Christmas tree
CHRISTMAS 2007
Here is how I ‘built’ this tree:
On the small Alpine trees, I find that trying to STRING lights just gets too much in the way of the decorations. But I LOVE lights! So, what I do on these is wrap a string of 100 lights AROUND THE TRUNK of the tree. It gives off a beautiful ‘glow’ from the center of the tree, which of course is impossible to capture with a flash picture. But here you can see the lights wrapped:
Nest I added some old seashell necklaces as garland. It looks a little cheesy when you JUST have the necklaces on, but it’s a great look when the tree is all decorated.
I also added some sheer ivory bows that I made from wired ribbon to fill in and soften the look of the tree:
Then LOTS of ornaments! I’ve got some stuffed fabric sand dollar and starfish like ornaments. and some tin and wood stars.
Princess pink Christmas tree!
CHRISTMAS 2007
I just HAD to do a PINK Christmas tree this year!
Close up of some of the ornies on the tree:
Other pink stuff at the base of the tree:
Sweet gifts for you little princess!
Snow princess doll:
And even some pink bottle brush trees!
From the “Nothing gets thrown away around here” file!
We literally picked up this discarded Christmas tree from the side of the road. Poor thing! After giving it’s life to bring holiday joy to someone’s home it was just carelessly tossed to the side of the road, or maybe it flew out of the back of a truck on the way to the tree grinder! Either way, such a sad ending for such a beautiful thing.
I’d been wanting to do this ‘project’ for some time, but we always use artificial trees at home and in the store. So I was thrilled when I noticed this tree on the side of the road, in need of a new purpose in life. Michael, on the other hand, was a little less thrilled at having to turn around and pull over to load my new found treasure into the back of the truck.
The whole rest of the winter, then spring, then summer he (the tree, not Michael!) sat out in the yard getting dry and brown. Needles washed away with every rainfall, and carried away on every breeze. “Don’t worry my little friend, I’ll be making you beautiful again when the time it right. Just be patient.” I’d whisper to him.
At last early fall began to settle in, the leaves began to turn & there was a chill in the early evening air. At last it was time for my tattered tree friend to receive his full body makeover! I had to pick out a few spider webs, and remove a few last needles. Then it was time for ‘the trimming’. Got out my garden pruners, and began to clip away some of the unruly branches and slim it down a bit. (looking back it probably would have been easier to use hedge trimmers for this; but, alas they were still on loan to my son and I wanted to get this project done NOW!)
Initially I was going to leave it ‘as is’ in it’s natural brown and use it for my Halloween tree in the store. But I decided to paint it. I used an off white flat spray paint. It took a lot of time to get every little branch covered….right side up, then upside down to get it fully covered, but two cans of paint later and just look how beautiful he is now!
I had SO many other decorated trees in the store at Christmas, I decided to leave this guy plain. A very elegant look, don’t you think? And a perfect filler and transition piece in the front window display for a January winter theme.
He stayed in the front window for Valentines day, and wore dozens of vintage style Valentine heart tags. Now he is back to being unadorned, and as the backdrop for a soft pink and sage green window display. He would be darling filled with little Easter egg decorations too.
And what about using it in a shabby beach cottage room decorated with seashell ornaments?!?!?! For my seashell ornaments I just use epoxy glue and glue a piece of string to the shell to hang it from.
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