A new tree skirt

I found this great tree skirt on, you guessed it, Pinterest, and I just had to do it! Little did I know it would be the biggest undertaking of the YEAR!

First off, you can see the original post from the pin here. It's a way cute blog, and her post encouraged me to try one myself. However, I must have had a bigger skirt than her, or I was way more greedy with my material, well...just keep reading...

I used an old silver tree skirt we have had packed in with the decorations for years. I purchased my burlap. Now, I have a ton of burlap. I always have. I've been using burlap in my projects for about four years already. Little did I realize the burlap craze would deplete the stores of said burlap. Silly me...

Anyway, I had to travel about an hour away to a Hancock Fabrics to get the "good" burlap. If you have ever worked with it, you know that burlap will "shed" and fray like crazy. What I bought was not on purpose, it's just what was out there. I had a 50% off coupon, which was good, because this was a more expensive kind. It did not shed, it did not fray..much.

I already had tons of muslin fabric. I followed Ashley's instructions, but I may not have done her justice. I started with the row of Muslin, then Burlap. It was really easy to glue, bur I did suffer some burned fingers once in a while...

I got my first four rows done and this is where the trouble began, I guess. I wasn't very liberal with my material. I ran out almost completely. Now, since burlap all comes in different colors, I didn't have any that matched...of course. What I did have was some red burlap. I had to improvise. I wish I had been able to foresee the way this was going, I would have been able to plan my color scheme better. Oh well, this is what I worked out.

After the first four rows, I made another row of muslin, so I did two rows of red and muslin to "match" the first four rows. Then I used a thinner muslin and made a larger ruffle close to the middle, and used what I had left over of the original brown burlap to finish it off. Not too shabby, right?
I just feel it would have looked a little better with the colors interspersed a little, though, no?

Our tree stand is very big. It has a large well for water, and it is an adjustable stand. There's a foot pedal that you can step on while the tree is up and even decorated, to adjust the tree if it is leaning. So, it's BIG. That's why the skirt I used was so much bigger.

Pretty cute, though, right? My sister came in and saw it and immediately said "Oooh, I want one!"
My response?

"NO WAY!" I told her I'd rather give her mine that to ever do this project again. Maybe it's because I did it in the floor. And it took me hours...HOURS...to finish. I'm not kidding. Three days and about 5-6 hours each sitting. (If ever there was a time I wanted spiked Eggnog, this was it. For real.)
5 hours today alone to finish it. I think I got too particular on the ruffles, and that's what took so long. Had I been a little looser my fabric would have lasted longer, too, I think.

Oh well, you live and you learn. I hate to say I'll never do it again, because now I feel a challenge to myself to get it 'right'. Maybe my sister has one in her future, after all...

If you decide to do one, I'd love to see it. I know it's a little late in the season this year, but it's never too early to get a jump on next year!

What other projects are you working on for Christmas?

Have fun, and thanks for reading today!

Nanette

O' Tannenbaum...How Lovely are your branches!

I was SO glad to have visited St. Charles. It got us in the Holiday Spirit, and I found the most coveted Burlap Ribbon. I had started to decorate my tree more than two weeks ago. First, Noah helped me get all the lights on. Then, he helped me get all the lights back off...we've never had such a large tree before. As you can see below in the last photo, the star almost touches the ceiling. Anyway, it was too big for our lights, so we took them all back off, used a one ended strand at the top, and put the other four long strands back on. Whew!

That's as far as I got that day. Then, a few days later (or maybe even a week... :/), I started to put the decorations on. That's when I realized I hadn't put the garland on. I bought a bunch of tulle that was on sale really cheap at Hobby Lobby that I wanted to make a garland out of like I saw here, but never got round to it. What I really wanted was a burlap ribbon garland, but could not find any. I did find some woven jute strap trim that we bought (for 50% off) to re-do the seat of these two nifty chairs we are going to refinish, but the amount I would need for this monster tree was going to cost me a fortune. So, strike that, too.

The tree sat.

And sat.

Until Wednesday when we went to St. Charles. Right there, inside the door of one of out favorite hip vintage-eclectic stores was a galvanized tub full of rolls of 10 foot long 3" wired burlap ribbon. Perfect. I went home that very night and took what few decorations I had on my tree back off again, and decorated my tree. At 10 O'clock at night.

Getting that done made me feel so much better. Then, getting out my Grandmother's and Mother's antique ornaments was the best part....

So, here is our 7 foot tree, made 8 feet in this big stand.

It's a Frasier fur, the only kind I really like.

A few of my favorites, including this very old elf that belonged to my Grandma. It's so wonderful to be able to still enjoy these things that I loved so much as a child.

                                                       The original "Elf on the Shelf"

I made this for myself and all of my friends and family one year. Super easy to do, and not a lot of money, but what a lovely thing, and quite the impact, I think. I saw this in an Archivers that year, and they had their wooden letters on clearance. A double score for me, since I had everything else on hand.

                                  Another little watcher tucked himself back in the branches...

             My grandmother's antique "Jumping Jack". I feel so blessed to still have these things.

                        Some more of Santa's helpers. These were my absolute favorite growing up.

These pine cone ornaments are also antiques of my grandmother's. I loved mixing all of the old with the new mercury glass ornaments that I got in Lebanon, Illinois one year during the Holiday Town Lighting Ceremony. They were all on clearance, too. I think they are beautiful.
The paper snowman is one of many I made after seeing them in Archivers, as well.

I picked up this Santa Moon ornament at a Dollar Tree many years ago. I love it and just can't part with it. We've had it since our son was very small.

My husband's (Noah) Noah's Ark ornament, and a new Nutcracker Jumping Jack to go with my antique. Noah has a lot of Ark themed things.

Well, here's the finished product. I'm so glad I got it done, even if I was a little late getting to it. Better late than never. It was so precious to me to go through and take my time decorating the tree this year, looking at all the ornaments from my own childhood. I think of my mother, and Noah's mother every day, but none as much as this time of year, I suppose. It is our first year without out Mom's, and we just don't know what to do with ourselves sometimes. It's a strange year for us. But, we know, our mom's wouldn't stand for us letting the season pass us by and not taking part in it's beauty. My Mom loved Christmas. I want to honor her by keeping our traditions, and memories.

How do you decorate your tree? We always put Charlie Brown Christmas in while we decorate our tree. I still have all of Tyler's little ornaments from school and Cub Scouts. I have Noah's childhood ornaments he made in school, and mine. Do you have yours; do you use them on your tree? Do you hang candy canes, like I do? White lights or candy colored?
Whatever your traditions, what's most important is who your with and how you feel, not what's piled up under the tree...

Until next time...thanks for reading!

Nanette