HOW TO DECORATE A DESIGNER CHRISTMAS TREE | Great for modern farmhouse, industrial, rustic homes

Have you ever gone to a department store or on a Christmas home tour to be really blown away by the quality of the Christmas trees, only to return home and feel like you've got the Charlie Brown Christmas tree? Well if you've ever wanted to create a grand Christmas tree, well then today's video will show you how. I'll talk you through step by step how to create a designer Christmas tree of your very own. Everything I'm going to share scales up or down based on the size of your tree. I happen to be decorating a 12 foot tree, but you can do something just as spectacular, even if the tree is half the size. Also, I like to have a theme tree, but these concepts still apply no matter what colors and styles happen to be your preference. And you don't have to purchase a lot of special expensive ornaments and materials. Most of the things on my tree came from Hobby Lobby and At Home. So come on, let's get started. So step number one is a pretty obvious step, and that's to get the tree out of the box and get it set up. This includes fluffing it and adding any additional lights that you may need. So while I'm getting it out of the box, I actually like to plug everything in while it's still unattached on the floor, and that way I can make sure that all of the lights still work. It's just a lot easier to diagnose any issues and to fix it while everything is in pieces on the floor instead of once it's already set up. Then I attach the bottom section and I start fluffing. And I like to fluff row by row before I unfold the next set of branches. And basically with fluffing, you cannot over fluff. Really the key is that you're going to want to touch every single branch tip and get it into exactly the position that you want. And basically what you want to do is just make sure that the branches are completely splayed out. As I'm fluffing each row, I also use this opportunity to add any additional lights. So a good rule of thumb for a tree is you want to have about 100 lights for every foot of the tree. So a 7-foot tree, 700 lights, 9-foot tree, 900 lights, and so on. But I do find that as the tree gets bigger than probably 9 feet, you probably want to increase the number of lights you want exponentially. So it's up to you whether or not you actually want to add any lights if you do have a pre-lit tree. I have a 12-foot tree and it comes with 1,350 lights. However, because it's so big at the base, I do think that it needs just a little bit more to be as bright as I want. So what I do is I add four strands of lights for a total of additional 600 lights. So my 12-foot tree ends up having 1,950 lights. I like to add lights that have different settings and I like to leave them on the twinkle setting. So as I'm fluffing each section and I'm adding the additional strands of lights, I will actually add them just a little bit more on the interior of the tree rather than all the way out at the ends of the branch tips. And the reason for this is when I leave them on the twinkle setting, then the tree just really glows from within. So let's go ahead and get started with setting up fluffing the tree and adding the lights. Second step in creating a designer-looking Christmas tree is to create a spectacular tree topper. I like to do the types of tree toppers that look like they're spraying out at the top of the tree, kind of like fireworks. Now one tip is to actually leave the very top section of your tree off and to assemble the tree topper on the top section while it's on the ground to make it a little bit easier and then to put it on the top. But because my Christmas tree is so large and because the tree topper that I create is kind of heavy, that's just too cumbersome. So I will be assembling mine on the top of my tree. So for a spectacular tree topper, it should consist of several different materials. The first are bows. And so this is the one of the bows that I've made for my tree. I'll link a video below that shows how you can make bows that look like this as well if you're interested. For a 12-foot tree, I like to use four bows about this size and I will tie these all the way around near the very top of the tree. If you have a 7.5 to 9-foot tree, you can probably get away with three bows and anything smaller than 7.5 feet, you only need two. Then I like to have a variety of sprays in different materials, colors, and visual weights that will actually come out of the tree topper at the very top and also even drip down a little bit. Once again, depending on the size of the tree will dictate how many of each item but also how many different items altogether. Because I have a big room with lots of visual space, I like to use several different items. I actually have five different items in addition to the bows that I'll be putting in. But if you have a tree that goes closer to the ceiling or is, say, in a corner, then you probably want to use less items just to avoid having too much visual clutter in the room. Last, just to be extra, I'm actually going to run a spotlight up through the center of the tree to come out at the top just to make the tree topper a little bit brighter. That's because for me, the top of my tree does get pretty dark. Basically, all this is is one of those heat lamps that you can get from the hardware store and I've taken that silver cone that comes around it off and then it's got an LED bulb which is very important because the LED bulb won't get hot. And then I'm going to attach this to an extension cord that I'll actually run up the center trunk of the tree and then I'll attach it at the top. And I'll actually do this before I get started on adding any of the other materials for my tree topper. And speaking of fasteners, generally what I like to use to fasten all of these materials to the tree to keep them in place are pipe cleaners. These are really handy because they disappear into the tree and are strong enough to hold stuff in place. Alternately, you can use the tree branches and just use those to tie around stuff once you get it up and you're ready to secure it. It's day two and I'm moving on to step three which is to add the fillers to the tree. This would be things like garland, ribbon, sprays, greenery, etc. For a sophisticated tree, I like to keep a lot of the materials more on the natural side rather than using a lot of tinsel or those kinds of materials. But one thing that I am going to do to help fill some of the spaces and gaps in the tree is put in some ribbons. And so rather than using long strands of ribbon that I have to weave in and out of the tree, what I like to do is just create simple loops. And then I can just tuck this in and fill in where I need to. I will save a few of these also for the very end when I'm surveying the tree to see if there are some bare spots that need some additional filling in. But I'll go ahead and apply most of these now as part of this step. I'll also take this time to go ahead and add some of the sprays of items that I would like to have just inserted in the tree. And I've got a few different types here. Different materials, different visual weights, and then of course some different colors. All of these are very glittery, so it's going to look like a glitter bomb went off in my house by the time this is all done. And then the last filler that I'm going to add are just things that also help take up space that I generally like to group in threes. So these are just natural materials that have been shaped into some interesting shapes, and of course colored in colored glitter. And then these are just some natural materials as well. And I grouped both of these in threes, and we'll insert these along different spots of the tree. So as I start putting these on the tree, I will go type by type. So I'll do all the ribbons first, then I'll move on to all of one type of spray, all of another type of spray, etc. And that's just to make sure that I get a very even disbursement throughout the tree of each of the materials. Now we finally get to ornaments. And what I like to do is go ahead and lay all of my ornaments out. So I've divided my ornaments into two different sections. My first section are what I kind of refer to as the filler ornaments. These are the ornaments that are maybe a little more plain. I've got a lot of them, a little bit bigger ornaments. And these are the things that I'm generally going to tuck more on the inside of the tree. Then I've got my special unique ornaments in another pile. And these are the things that I probably don't have as many of, or I like them so well and maybe have more detail, but I want to make sure that they hang on the outside of the tree. So to start applying ornaments, what I'm going to do is I'm going to work myself from the inside out. So I am going to hang ornaments inside of the tree. And the reason that you do that is it makes your tree just have more dimension. It makes it look fuller. It makes it look more impressive. And especially when you hang things with a little bit of a shine on the inside, it helps reflect the light even more. So your tree appears even brighter. So I'm going to start with the filler ornaments. And I'm going to work myself kind of from the bottom up. So I've got several different types of balls. I have balls in all different sizes. And then of course, I have just your typical balls that you see. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to start with some of the bigger balls. And I'm actually going to tuck these kind of into the tree. And I may need to tie it to keep it to stay at least something this big. But for some of my other ones like these, I'm actually just going to tuck them in and they'll stay quite nicely on their own. I don't use ornament hangers unless I absolutely have to. So when I get to some of the smaller balls and the special unique ornaments, I will use hangers there. But otherwise, I'm really trying to tuck inside the tree. And so I won't use the hangers. In addition, once I hang up the balls, I'm going to use this as a time to put in some of the bigger items that I have. So for instance, I have three of these neat big deer. And so I'm going to distribute them throughout the tree. You may have noticed when I was applying the spray that I have a certain way I like to go, especially when I have something in three. I like to form a little bit of a diamond shape. So I'll do one low, then kind of zigzag up, and then come back down. So with the three of these, I'm going to do that throughout the tree to make sure that you can see one kind of no matter what angle you're at all the way around the tree. Then I'll continue to put on all of my balls and filler ornaments type by type. So things like my silver balls, I've got a lot of those. And so I will do all the silver balls before I move on to some of the aqua balls that I have. Once I've got all of my filler ornaments up on the tree, I'll then move on to my special or unique ornaments. And because I've been working myself inside out, most of the balls and filler ornaments will have gone more to the inside, leaving the outermost branch tips with plenty of space for all of my favorite ornaments that I can showcase on the very most outside part of the tree. So now that we've got all the ornaments on the tree, the fifth step is to take a step back and survey and see how you like everything on the tree. Now I've been doing this as I went along, but I want to go ahead and take a step back now and go ahead and look over everything. And I'll continue to do that over the next few days, weeks, probably all the way through Christmas. I'll continue tweaking. But basically what I'm looking for, for any spots where it looks bare, feels a little heavy, I've got too much of the same thing. And if I find that, I'll just move stuff around. Now is also the time that I'll go ahead and use the remaining ribbon loops that I have and just fill in in some of those bare spots because that inevitably happens. And last step, once you have the tree how you like it, time to add the tree skirt. And since I don't like having a tree skirt with no presents or anything on it, I always like to accessorize my tree skirt to kind of fill in until the time I have presents to put under the tree. So I use several different things. The first is I like to use a nice big Santa. Then I always find some neat Christmas trees. These are just some hemp rope Christmas trees covered in glitter. More of it. What else? And then I even have this nice little trio of lighted presents that will provide some light underneath the Christmas tree. So I'll go ahead and arrange the skirt and these items, and our tour will be done. Here's how everything turned out, and I'm really pleased. Now I'm going to go clean up from this glitter explosion. Although, let's face it, I'll be cleaning up glitter for months. Anyway, I hope you like this video. If so, please give it a thumbs up, and consider subscribing so you don't miss out on any of my future videos. And if you try a designer tree out of your own, please let me know how it goes in the comments. Hope you have a very merry holiday season, and until next time, bye!