Monday, November 22, 2010

Festival of Trees


WARNING ... there are a lot of pictures of christmas trees and decorations ... don't be stressed out for me! ... I'm a little crazy and a little obsessed with Christmas junk! ;-)

So, we started decorating a little early ... almost 2 weeks before Thanksgiving. I'm glad I did it early because now I get to enjoy the decorations and I don't have to worry about decorating the day after Thanksgiving.

So let me take you on a tour of my "FESTIVAL OF TREES!"

Living Room - Harvest Theme ;-) This Tree reminds me of the tree from the Christmas Carol, when Scrooge meets the Ghost of Christmas Present. I tried out some new decorating techniques that I saw at Thai Pan and Modern Display. I used green mesh fabric and some brown chiffon to fill the tree, along with ribbon. Joly ole' tree and I get to use my autumn decorations a little longer ;-)


Now, in the kitchen. We do have 'some' reference to Thanksgiving. (The little Thanksgiving tree that Pete's Aunt made us still has a spot by the sink. I love it!)

"The Turkey Tree"

The rest of the kitchen is a candy theme. I was crazy to try and do South Beach and live in a 'candy' kitchen. Here are wreath projects that we did last year. We got some styrofoam forms and glue-gunned candy to them. We were worried that all of the time was going to be a waste if it didn't 'keep' for another year. But, wrapped in a garbage bag, inside a wreath box, and they were good as new!




Almost 8 years ago me and some of my sisters submitted a small tree for Festival of Trees in honor of my little sister Julie. This fun little tree is now known as the "Julie Tree." This tree went from my sister's in-laws, to my sister, to my brother, to my mom's basement. It was looking a little sad and needed a little face lift. I was glad to help out this little tree!

"The Julie Tree"


Peppermint Garland

The kids rooms:

Phillip's M&M Tree


Lily & Amelia's Princess Tree

Now lets walk down to the basement where the craziness just gets crazier ...

Old fashioned Christmas Tree with Train Village. Pete has an almost complete collection of "The Christmas Story" village. He has his grandpa's train in working order that runs around the town ... complete with animated gondola and Santa. My favorite part of this tree are the animated soldier ornaments that play christmas songs with bells.


It's going to be a 'Coke Christmas' - I don't think I have posted a picture of our downstairs diner kitchen yet .. here it is! I even have have a cookie jar collection (I need to get a weekly dose of 'hoarders' on A&E!). We got some cute coke ornaments from ... you guessed it .. a garage sale. I thought it would be funny to have a diet coke garland. Guess how many days it took to collect the 8 'diet coke' ornaments.




And last but definitely not least, we have a 'Star Wars' tree in the movie room. I can just imagine the kids looking at this tree and asking, "Mom, what is the true meaning of Christmas?"



So there you have it, 8 trees, 2 garland (inside & outside), 4 wreaths, countless animated singing Christmas toys .. isn't it wonderful!!

6 comments:

Anica said...

Wow! Everything is so beautiful! It looks so professional!

Spencer Family said...

Cathy, I love your decorations! Your house looks amazing. I am headed to the store right now to make that candy wreath--so cool.

Mommymita said...

Cathy - you may not be able to re-fashion a sweater but you sure can decorate! You could go into window display! Maybe you should offer that service to Zion's.

Also love that the Star Wars garage sale figures made it to a tree.

No one does Christmas like Cathy! so says my kids.

Penny said...

I LOVE it!! Julies tree looks amazing! You guys make me smile! Love ya lots!

Thinker said...

I love the star wars tree! I also love the fact that the star wars dolls were gifts from us.


by the way, how long did it take you to get all 8 coke ornaments?

Becca said...

What a fun house to visit at christmastime! You now need a video of your outdoor light show - it is amazin!

thinker - I think it only took cathy 2 days to gather 8 coke "ornaments"