How to Decorate Your Christmas Tree: Part 3

Tuck, Balance and Surprise…

Sounds like a bad reality show. HA! But really…these are important topics for today’s post!

In my previous post in Part 2’s How to Decorate Your Christmas Tree, I covered MANY tricks to the trade – graciously given by Canterbury Cottage’s owner, Cindy Haight. These secrets she revealed will help guide you as you finish up decorating your tree – or prepare you for next year’s decorating.

Let’s get started!

 

TUCK

 I am completely guilty of hanging my ornaments all on the outside branches of my Christmas tree! (Whew, now that I have that off my chest…) One of the first things Cindy taught while decorating trees was to create interest by tucking ornaments into the center of the tree. This makes such a difference! We use all sizes of ornaments, but bigger ones seem to do the trick nicely!

See those bark covered balls and the woven yarn and wood one too?

See how much depth it gives to the tree? Just like stringing the lights in and out of the branches, ornaments can be placed in and out of the tree branches, too!

 

BALANCE

Definition: (noun) – As a basic principle of art (specifically of design), the definition of balance refers to the ways in which the elements (lines, shapes, colors, textures, etc.) of a piece are arranged. (credit: About.com)

Have you ever stared at your tree, tilted your head and said, “Something doesn’t look right.” Yep. All. The. Time.

It’s probably an issue of balance. Creating a cascade of color balance, along with a balance of weight (I’m not pointing fingers to our scale during the holidays lol…) gives harmony to your design. It’s fairly simple, if your tree seems to feel “heavy” on one side – try placing a few of those ornaments on another part of the tree. If your tree looks like there is too much red in one area, swap decorations with others that have less red.

When adding picks and sprays to the tree, use the “zig-zag” approach. Just like lacing your shoes, place a pick on the left and then one on the right slightly higher and so forth. Make sure to do this all around your tree – so it doesn’t end up looking one sided.

See how we “zig-zagged” the large silver pine cones up the tree?

 

SURPRISE 

We love hearing, “Oh my! They have an entire lantern in their tree!” or “How did they get those logs to stay in that tree?!”…even “I wouldn’t have thought of that!”.

We love to experiment on our trees!

Wire is our best friend! Don’t be afraid to try something different this year!

Try a lantern!

Or a mailbox!

I spy with my eyes…a metal basket, birds nest….

…and a sleigh!

Run wild with your imagination!