A Snowy Candyland Christmas Tree

Ya’ll I’m going WAY out of the box this year.

You know I have a long history of getting a little lodgey in the winter, and I love using the rustic elements on my tree as well. Take a look at my previous trees here and here. I obviously have an obsession with plaid and burlap. But after last year, I decided to get crazy and buy a bunch of ornaments on sale in a completely different color scheme.

Turquoise, pink, purple, lime, and silver…yup total candyland style awesomeness.

Of course that meant that none of the other tree decorating items I already own matched, so I had to start from square one.

First up: tree skirt.

For some reason, I decided to make it of white faux fur. I have no explanation for this other than it’s fluffy and the cats seem to like it. I bought a 60″ square piece (in hindsight, I probably could have gotten away with a smaller cut), and expertly crafted lazily cut it to shape. I just folded it twice in half and cut a rough arc out of the top layer.

Then I cut the rest of the layers to match.

Then I opened up the whole thing and cut a keyhole like a traditional skirt. BOOM. No sew tree skirt.

After I spent 20 minutes vacuuming up the stray fur- some of which was thrown around the house by the cats- I put the skirt in place around the base of our tree and moved on to step 2: garland.

Continuing with the fluffy idea, my first thought was mini pom poms. I even saw perfect jewel toned little guys in bags at the craft store. Too bad it was like $4 for 20. It’s definitely more appropriate for me to spend $4 on this entire project. While scouring the kid’s crafting section for something cheap en masse, I see larger white pom poms. Better, but still pricey.

“Ooh! Cotton balls!” I love it when that happens.

600 cotton balls, roughly $4, some thread, and a couple hours of my life was all it took to create a fluffy cotton ball garland worthy of this year’s tree. Some may think 2 hours is too long, but don’t people do this with popcorn?? At least I can re-use my version!

Before I started putting everything on the tree, I needed to complete step 3: flocking. If you’re unfamiliar with this term (I was), it’s essentially faux-snow blowing your tree. Because in real life indoor trees can have snow on them.

I used the same recipe I have in the past which involves beating the crap out of these ingredient with a mixer:

• 2 cups grated Ivory soap (about 1.5-2 bars)
• 2/3 cup liquid starch (Bounce Ironing Spray also works)
• 4 tbsp hot water

Apply the shaving cream like product to the tree with your hands for the most natural effect.

I actually had to mix up two batches to cover the tree to my liking, and I almost mixed up another (actually I would have, if I had more soap). Let the flocking dry overnight before adding your decorations, but even then it will flake off a bit – just be gentle.

After I flocked the tree, added the lights, garland and ornaments, it looked like this:

Can you find the cat photobomb?

Since I had to get all new ornaments, I didn’t cover the tree heavily…those things get expensive! I used a lot of balls and sale ornaments, but there are a couple of ornaments that are special.

I mean, obviously. Are you telling me you could resist this completely unrealistic owl ornament? I found it in a gift shop at Biltmore Estate, therefore it’s the poshest sparkle owl in all the land.

This sweet ornament was a gift from a friend I recently taught to knit. How awesome is it??

To fill in the tree a bit more, I took advantage of a sale and a coupon at Michaels for some sparkle picks. I do sometimes get a little carried away in the sparkle pick section of the store, but in this case I felt it was justified. Take this giant pink feather, for instance.

Truthfully I spent about a week looking for a reasonable peacock feather situation, but in the end I decided these would do the trick.

I absolutely love the look of the snow on the tree. It’s sort of like a compromise between a regular tree and a white one (which I really don’t think I could commit to, but I have seen beautiful ones). I actually really like the colors on this tree more than I thought I would. I tend to gravitate towards the natural earthy colors, but it’s nice to change things up every once in awhile. Did you try something new this year? Or do you have a set theme you add to every year? I’m still working on decorating the rest of the house, but I’ll share pictures soon.