Decorating Christmas Trees with Ribbon

Decorating your Christmas tree with ribbon is a gorgeous way to change things up.  If you aren't in to the "mesh" ribbon, this is a beautiful alternative.

For a Tutorial with lots of photos on how to decorate your christmas tree with ribbon, click HERE.

Linking up to these parties:

Creating a Christmas Tree Topper

Continuing on with the Christmas decorations, we finally finished the tree and this is the final tutorial.  I've always wanted a dramatic tree topper and we definitely accomplished that.  Trick was, finding items that worked - in our color scheme of silver and purple.  Those of you with red and green have SO many options!

Click HERE for my other Christmas Tutorials.

As I've said, do NOT pay full price.  Too many sales going on, between Michael's, Jo Ann Fabrics, Hobby Lobby - 40-50% and don't forget to look for online coupons to print and take with you.  Most of these stems were in the Christmas stem section, but a few were in the general floral section.  We basically just looked all over the store and found things in various locations.  Buy something you see today - you can always return it.  It won't be there when you go back.  (I've learned that the hard way!)  The only stem that cost more than $1 to $1.50 were the long crystal stems, and they were $5.00 each on sale.   

So, here are some photos of some items we purchased.  We had no idea what we wanted, so we got a bunch of stuff and returned what we did not use.

Didn't end up using the purple stems in this photo.

These are very long and I love the crystals - really catch the light.

We started with the longest, dark purple sticks.  We had tried some silver, swirly sticks, but they didn't stand out.  I wanted to clearly see the sticks.  These were perfect!

Added in the silver ball stems and we are done!  Perfect height and shape we wanted.  Some folks really mix and match the stems - I wanted a more segregated look.  Can always change it up if I get bored!

Quite a few stems were NOT used and we promptly returned them because frankly, if we waited, we would have forgotten!

We have really switched up our decor this year - here is our tree from last year (I'm trying to talk hubs into putting it in the dining room, but I don't think I'm gonna win this one. lol

Different house, different tree, different colors, horizontal ribbon garland........pretty much changed everything!  lol

Hope this tutorial helps you create a beautiful tree topper for YOUR tree!

I will be linking to THESE parties!

Tree Party

Rich Floral Elements in Christmas Tree Decor

As promised, another Christmas Decor Tutorial.  Do you use large flowers as a foundation to your Christmas Tree decor? 

 

 

I will admit it was very difficult to get the accurate purple color expressed in the photos.  They do vary, but I did my best to tweak to the true effect.  lol

I have done this for years and it is beautiful.  This year, as we are switching to a lavender/eggplant color scheme, hubs found a mantel garland that he loved and thought it would be cheaper to buy than if I made one.  (Silly guy, but it made him happy!).  So as you can see in this picture, there was a deep eggplant ribbon in the mantel decor that we have not used in our ribbon on the Christmas tree:

Mantel Decor

Ribbon Choices for Tree

Now, remember when I told you NEVER PAY FULL PRICE?  Well, every single week Michael or Hobby Lobby will have their floral stems and/or Christmas floral stems 40 to 50% off, guaranteed.  So you check the flyers that come in the paper or you go online and check their ads.  At Hobby Lobby, you can check their online coupons as well, and you might get additional savings.  Last week, the coupon was 40% off any one regular priced item!

So, we were at Micheal's with our coupons and sales going on and I saw these gorgeous eggplant poinsettias (?) and knew they'd be perfect.  Regularly $5.99, we got them for $3.00 each.   You always want to work in 3's - and I decided to get 6 for the entire tree.  (Our new tree is very slim - another hubby request - been putting that purchase off for at least 3 years.  lol)

New Floral for Tree

First, we placed the ribbon.  Tutorial HERE.  Next, we placed the floral pieces - all as the foundation to the tree decor prior to the many ornaments.  I leave the long stems on the florals as well as the price tags until I am sure I will use all of them and decide how many I need.  Sometimes I return extras. 

As soon as I get the florals set in place, we go back and cut the stems (with wire cutters) to about 8 inches.  Since we don't attach the florals with wire, the length of the stem gives just enough to settle in the tree limbs and sit firmly.  Remains easy to remove and move around until they are just right once the ornaments go on.

Here is what it looks like at this stage at night.

Taken with iPhone4 - sorry about the quality.

Are you ready to change up your regular routine and try some gorgeous florals on your tree this year?  If you normally do a red/green decor, can't you just picture large red poinsettias?  Some of the choices go from little to no glitter to being super sparkly- so many choices at the various stores.


Have a glorious day!

I'm linking to THESE wonderful parties!

How to Use Ribbon to Decorate Your Christmas Tree

Today's tutorial is one that is hard to find - How to decorate using ribbon on your Christmas Tree.  I wasn't sure exactly how to do it "just right" and went searching online.  I could hardly find anything!  I tried using different search words - How to drape ribbon on a Christmas tree, Tips for using ribbon on a Christmas tree, and so on.  So my engineer hubby and I played around and came up with method and we love it.  Thought I'd share it!

First, choose 2-3 different wire-edged ribbons in colors that make you happy.  This year, we are doing a lavender/purple/eggplant/silver decor theme and found these ribbons at Sam's Club.  But don't forget to check online for coupons and ads to places like Michael's, Hobby Lobby, etc.  NEVER pay full price!  What isn't on sale this week WILL be on sale soon. 

You will need:

Ribbon - I used 3 different types, but you can use how many you choose

Floral wire

Small wire cutters/wire snips

Look at your tree and decide how many sections you will need.   We have a 7.5 foot slim tree and I had an idea how "wide" I wanted my ribbon trails to spread out, so we decided on 4 sections for the entire tree.  This will make sense as I go.  If you have a wider, fuller tree, you will need many more than 4 sections if you want to saturate with ribbon.  You may only want a little bit of ribbon - it is all personal taste.  

This is the BASE of my decor - I won't be using garland or any other "stringing" items.  This ribbon is my first layer.

I also knew that I wanted my ribbon tails to hang down slightly to the right, all the way around.  Not straight down.  If you look at the finished photo, you will see the tilt to the ribbon.

Take each ribbon end and fold in half to cut the edge, like so:

Decide what order you want your ribbon in:

After deciding the order, lay them on top of each other like this:

Let your ribbon form a circle - the wire-edged ribbon will do this naturally.

Put the ribbon in your hand as so, making a loop with a tail.  You can make this tail as short or long as you would like.  This tail will be at the top of the tree, so if you would like a long tail sticking up, make it longer.  We decided on this length for our tree.

Squeeze the center of the wire loop:

Cut a length of the floral wire to use to attach the ribbon to the tree:

Take this wire and wrap it around the crunched area of the loop:

Twist the wire around each other to secure it.  This is my husband holding the loop by the wire only.

Fluff your loop and twist and arrange the ribbon tails.

Now, attach this ribbon loop near the top of the tree with the wire.  You will do this repeatedly with how ever many loops you decide to use, so space them appropriately.

Now you will have your 3 tails streaming down the tree, loose.   To decide how much ribbon you need, let the ribbon hang down below the tree stems and add about 2-3 feet beyond the length of the tree, then cut.  You will need the ribbon cut off the bolts to continue.  You can always cut off ribbon if you have too much, rather than if you have too little.

First thing now is to form the first "loop".  You will alternate the loops with the "crunches".

After you make the first loop, crunch the ribbon and wrap a tree stem around it.  If you have a real tree, use additional wire to attach, or loop the ribbon around the tree stem. 

The trick to making it beautiful is to alternate your loops with crunches with each color.  Can you see in the photos that the loops and crunches alternate?

This is what it looks like at the top - so pretty!  You can continue to "fluff" the loops and tails to your liking.  This is going to look great with our tree topper items with these ribbon loops intermixed.

And here is how it looks full length view.

The tree is now ready for the ornaments and other items!  Those tutorials upcoming.  Enjoy!

I will be linking up the THESE Linking Parties.  Please visit them to see many more projects!


Have a glorious day!