My Adorable Mini Christmas Trees (So Cute I had to Buy TWO!)
Why put up one big tree, when you can have two mini Christmas trees?! Last year I enjoyed getting a shorter 4-5 foot tree to set up on my side table. So this year I thought it would be fun to get 2 or 3 really short trees to display together. What's great is that the little trees were just $15 each, so my pair of trees actually cost less than the taller ones we've gotten in years past. When we went to the nursery hubbs said he thought the chubby "tuna can" trees were fun, and I agreed!
Fat, stubby, Christmas shrubs - perfect!! The trunks are so slim that I didn't even use our regular stand. Instead I put one in an old crock, and the other in an antique ironstone chamber pot, and the base branches sit right across the tops to hold the trees up. A few rocks in the bottom keep everything weighted and secure.
My trees are sometimes strange, often quirky, and always experimental. Martha once said that her houses were her laboratories, and this is how I feel about decorating for the holidays. I do something different each year, and really use it as a creative expression. For years I decorated department store trees, and the last thing I want is for my tree to look like it belongs in a mall! Because I essentially,"do Christmas" for a living, it's a great chance to play. What I find is that what I do in my decorating often ends up inspiring my creative work for the following year. So to the trees. For both trees I used a can of spray snow to frost the tips. I had never done this before, and for small trees, it's really fun!! I think next year I might go full flock. One can of premium spray snow frosted both of my mini trees with a thin coat. I love how it lightens the color of the pine.
I also switched up my lighting this year. I've done mostly clear mini lights for the last, oh, TEN YEARS, so this year I went technicolor. I had been avoiding LED lights for some time, largely because I just don't think the technology is "there" yet. Meaning, I can't stand that searing vibrating blue color, and long for the days of ceramic bulbs with that warm candy glow. I didn't want to use the old fashioned incandescent bulbs because I'm just not comfortable putting the larger hot-burning bulbs in a real tree. I don't see how everyone did it in the 50s - I would have serious anxiety over it. So I broke down and got the LED lights that are meant to look like the old style lights. The good people at Sylvania call this "classic glow." I'm not entirely happy with them because I still see them as being too harsh and vibrant, particularly the blues, but it's as close as I'll get right now. I bet in another few years they will have figured out how to make it look right, and I'll trade up then.
So here are the trees:
Tree #1: Snowland.
This is the larger of my two trees. I used smaller-bulbed lights, and on some of the bulbs I used vintage foil reflectors. The ornaments are mostly white and cream. I included a lot of spun cotton pieces. The spun cotton icicles are some that I made myself, and they look great paired with real vintage spun cotton bells and snowballs.
Nestled among the boughs are several vintage plastic deer. A couple of those were my grandmother's.
The only colorful ornaments on this tree are some vintage 1950s German candy containers that were my mom grew up with. I love just that little touch of color.
Tree #2: The Village Tree.
Gosh, isn't this tree just so fun? Because the tree is shaped like a tuna can, it has these great shelf-like boughs at the top, and so I set up a village there! You guys know how much I love little houses. So this village is a collection of houses that I just keep adding to. Some I made by hand, some are vintage, and a few I bought here and there. I set them up on a bed of vintage Angel Hair, which is spun glass filament.
The lower branches of the tree I decorated with mercury glass in all colors. I like oddball glass ornaments. Sometimes I buy big boxes of estate ornaments for my shop. The pretties I sell, but the uglies usually stay with me. I don't mind the wear, the tarnish, the grubbiness. I actually really like the dull glow they give.
I also have a few really nice ones in my collection - like these German indents with the Dresden trim.
I also included some of the plastic JewelBrite ornaments my mom sent to me last year. Can you see the inspiration for my diorama ornaments?
And to top off this tree I used a funky 1960s blowmold candle. Wild, right?
I love how it all turned out. Maybe next year I'll get THREE trees! Hope everyone is having fun decking their halls!
