My Tree

 

 

Three years ago, we relocated from a rented house to an apartment about 70 minutes south of where we lived. The apartment was actually larger- we went from 3 small bedrooms to 3 good sized bedrooms and 1 huge bedroom. However, we lost the garage storage space. That meant giving up a lot of items. For instance- every last piece of outdoor Christmas decorations, gone. And my tree, though that was easier to give up. It was a cheap one to begin with, and all of the prelit lights no longer lit up.

When Christmas came around, we weighed our option and our budget, and I bought a fairly inexpensive $35 white Christmas tree. I loved it. I couldn't believe how nicely it showed off our ornaments, and how pretty it was.

Last year, I was longing for a green tree again, though. A "normal" tree, that is. After Christmas, I found one on clearance- a 7 1/2 foot tall prelit tree. I love it! But, I decided as soon as I bought it, that I would keep my smaller 6 foot white tree. See, last summer, we moved again, and bought our first house. It's large- 4 real bedrooms, plus 2 rooms that could be bedrooms, except they lack closets to legally be called bedrooms. Plus a large dining room, a nook, a large kitchen, living room, and a family room. Plenty of space!

Right from the moment I bought the 7 1/2 foot tree, I knew I would have two full size trees put up this year. We put the new tree up weeks ago, with the kids doing all the decorating, as they usually do. It's nice, and I love it.

I lacked the ambition & time to put the white tree up, though, until today. Not only did I get the tree up, I also finally ripped down the horrible stapled valances the prior owners had put in the dining room. They weren't bad, but not my taste. They also had some blinds up in the large windows back there, but the blinds were all in various states of not really working. We finally were able to figure out today just how to remove those stupid things.

So, the tree is up. It had 300-400 lights on it, all clear, as a prelit tree. I added 500 more. 400 were multi colored (with 200 of them blinking), and 100 were solid purple. So it's pretty well lit. I had 1 extra strand of purple, and 1 strand of blue, so I put those around the two windows back there.

I love the white tree. I did all bright colored ornaments, mostly in aqua, purple, and pink, but also oranges, greens, and reds. I love, love, love having my own tree to decorate not. It's not all designed and perfect, but it looks nice, and it'll be a welcome site when we arrive home every day.

 

 

And the Winner....

...will be announced later today. Turns out, I have a horrendous head cold, and all I can think of doing right now, is crawling back into bed. Later today, when I feel more alive, I'll post the winner of the contest.

In the mean time, thank you everyone who entered, and who tweeted, or posted to facebooks, or blogs about the contest! There have been a lot of new faces here to the blog this week.

It's also been an exciting week for me, as a newbie blogger- I've been featured this week on 3 different blogs/websites for 2 of my projects! I'm so excited by that! When I look at all the gorgeous items some of these super talented people put out, I'm just amazed. I look at my crafts as easy, frugal, and quick things to make, and I'm glad others seem to like them as well!

My features this week are:

Someday Crafts- This cool blog has featured my Scarf & Hat from a Sweater tutorial.
Craft Gossip- This website, which houses just tons of ideas, has also featured my scarf & hat from a sweater tutorial!
Dollar Store Crafts- This feature is one I knew about ahead of time. I showed off my Dishtowel & Potholder Apron, and they loved it!

It also sounds like I might be featured again soon on another website, so I'm just as excited as can be! I also had my busiest blog day ever, in terms of visitors this past week. My prior high for the day was 303 visitors on November 9th. My new high is 410 on the 18th this past week! Since then, I'm averaging almost 300 a day, as well, which is just amazing to me!

Thank you so much for enjoying my blog!

This weekend will be a slow blog weekend. On top of the head cold, I promised Gillian we would go to the science museum today- it's free entrance to people with my insurance, so frugal fun! Tomorrow, we're going to clean out the living room a bit, and dig out the Christmas tree! SO excited!

Christmas Trees

This year, I'm going a bit crazy. I have 4 Christmas trees to put up. Yes, you read that correctly, 4! Ok, let's be more realistic. 2 are only 3 feet tall, and pre-lit with fiber optics. They don't exactly "count" as far as work involved.

But the other two are both full size trees. I have had the first one for 3 years now, this year. It's a 6 foot tall white tree, pre-lit with clear bulbs. You should know that when it comes to Christmas, the more color, the better. I adore brightly colored lights, bulbs, ribbons, bows, and ornaments on my tree.

My mother was of the mindset that a tree should look uniform, classy, and traditional. Little red bows, clear lights. I can appreciate the simplicity of it, I really can. Just not in my house!

While the white tree with white lights might seem to clash with my need for color, really it doesn't. The first year, we added strands of red lights, and decorated it in only red, white, or silver ornaments. It was our Candy Cane tree. If you turned the clear lights off, it glowed like cinnamon hard candy. I loved it!

Last year, we added multicolored lights. I hated the tree lit just by the colored lights. It went all dim and dark, and the colors just didn't pop like they did if the clear lights were on it. The hues took on a more vibrant shade, with the green looking turquoise, and the reds looking like pink. LOVED it! We put all the ornaments on last year, or rather, about half, I suppose.

After Christmas last year, I had a gift card, and I knew what I wanted. I knew I wanted a traditional tree again. A green tree. A tall, full, green tree. I wanted it cheap, but not cheap looking.

I found a gorgeous 7 1/2 foot tall, full tree, half off the day after Christmas last year. It was the last pre-lit tree with multi colored lights, too! So this year, two big trees. I have a large dining room, which is almost too big to be a dining room if you ask me. We have a table that, when fully extended, seats 8, and there is a lot of empty space around it.

The white tree will go in the dining room this year, in the corner, since there are windows leading right up to the corner on both sides.

The green tree will go in the living room, the center piece of the holiday decorations. I've already told the kids they get to decorate that tree. The white tree is all mine. Here are photos of my white tree from the past two years... enjoy!

Our 2007 Christmas Tree

This is what our tree looked like with just the red lights on, when I used the flash on the camera. Kind of gave it a warm pink glow all over.

This was what the tree looked like with the clear lights off, and no flash on the camera- all warm & cinnamony!

Well, obviously this isn't of my tree, but wasn't Gillian just so darn cute?

My 2008 Christmas Tree