Decorating Carrie's House 2016 - Living Area Tree

This blog post will be an ongoing adventure! Carrie and David have been chosen to be featured in a local magazine showcasing Trendy Tree! So....they have elected to decorate their home with products from Trendy Tree so folks can get a better look of just what the business is all about. I'm going to share some photos of this process as they do all the work)))) Carrie along with her good friend, Rachael, will do most of the decorating and David and I will be the "gofers." Well, David is doing all the heavy work and and I'm mainly sitting around with a cool drink and a camera)))) The main tree that will be used in the living area is a 10' flocked tree. The base diameter of this tree is 84" - that is SEVEN FEET in diameter at the bottom. Decorations for the living area tree are based on the The Tree Lot Collection from RAZ. Not everything used on the tree came from The Tree Lot Collection and North Pole Village. It has a great classic red and green look with a touch of multicolor and old fashioned items like silver tinsel garland. Carrie had been admiring the snow covered tree at Craig Bachman for a couple of years now, and since she and David moved into their new home this summer, she felt it was time for the 'TREE." Well, you know how it goes with the best laid plans.......The "plan" was for this beautiful tree to sit in the foyer in the curve of the staircase. Perfect))) This tree was so wide at the bottom, you couldn't have gotten through the foyer! Visitors would have had to detour through the dining room, kitchen, to the living area......so we had to regroup. The tree had to be moved to the living area. It was too tall to fit upstairs on the balcony which we thought might be another option. Trees always turn out to be bigger than they look in the showroom! So, pay special attention to dimensions when you have them. For me, I need to see the space laid out or walked off on the floor. It is a huge tree.....but still, beautiful and the kids will love it))) The living room furniture will be moved around a little and we did have to block a side door, but it works. The ledge up above the living area will also be decorated with several styles and sizes of lanterns filled with candles....more on that later. The tree was pre-lit of course and we debated on adding some clear/white G40 bulbs, but opted to go with just the lights on the tree. The above photo was in the afternoon so all the lights don't show up well just yet. One of the unique features of this tree is the clumps of "snow" on the tips of the branches. The snow flocking felt very durable in the showroom and of course there was some shedding during decorating but not anything unusual. They started with the largest ornaments first, then medium and the smallest last. Added in some sprays, ribbons and made a topper out of different styles of sprays. Here are some closeup shots of some of the ornaments being used on this tree. It's so much easier to see what ornaments really look like when you can see them used on an actual tree)) This jolly Santa Face ornament is from RAZ, made of paper and measures about 12" x 10" These wooden disk ornaments from RAZ measure about 6" in diameter and are made of MDF. They depict old fashioned images and come as an assortment of three different styles. Large RAZ wooden message ornaments are about 9", made of MDF in red and green and have the phrases: Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas and It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year. This RAZ Believe ornament isn't on the website as yet, but I think we will be adding some a little later. Notice the Silver Tinsel in this image. The limbs on this tinsel are long! We'll show more images of it later. This image shows several different items, but note the RAZ Deer Head. There is a butt somewhere on this tree too! The Deer Head measures about 13" and comes from the North Pole Village Collection. Ahh....here's the butt! So cute! Love the striped portion on the lower legs. It also is from the North Pole Village Collection and measures about 16" The classic glass bell ornament is from RAZ and also comes assorted with clear bells. Gosh...all we need are some bubble lights! "Filler" balls of red, white wool and red/white striped in 5" and 4" sizes were used throughout the tree. These balls are great for decorating, with their sprinkling of glitter. They are unbreakable too! 3556422 5" Glittered Red Wool Ball 3556421 4" Glittered Red Wool Ball 3556408 5" Glittered White Wool Ball 3556407 4" Glittered White Wool Ball 3552277 5" Iced Striped Red/White Ball 3552278 4" Iced Striped Red/White Ball The red color on the Ice Striped Ball seems dark at first, but once you add the balls to the tree, the richness of the red just blends well with the other items. I didn't get a great shot of the Iced Striped Balls, but you can see a little bit of one in the background of this image. The multicolor finial is from the RAZ Tinsel Tangle Collection. The finials come as an assortment of two styles, made of glass and measure about 7.5 to 8More pops of color are created by these bold RAZ Glass Finials. They come in an assortment of three colors - red, green and blue. They measure about 9" and also are made of glass. The RAZ Truck with Christmas Tree ornament also comes as a set with a station wagon with tree on top. They measure about 6" The Silver Tinsel garland doesn't really show up that great in the image, but it looks great on the tree. The garland has and old fashioned look about it. It's already sold out for this year, but it's been so popular I hope it's around from RAZ for 2017. Remember, safety first! Use a good sturdy ladder and while Carrie is facing the wrong direction on this ladder right now, she did go take off her flip flops and put on tennis shoes "at mom's request" lol The tree topper was made with Snowflake Sprays from RAZ (F3502299 31" in length from the Celebrate the Season Collection); red curly tinsel sprays (238055 32" in length); and some White Snowy Branches from RAZ (F3417613 44" in length). Assorted wired Christmas ribbons were added to the tree: MTX52164 4" Velvet Red/Green with Snowy Fur Edge 252024 4" White Ribbon (feels like wool) RG16043K 2.5" Red/Emerald Stripe 252076 2.5" Red/Black Chenille 252074 2.5" Red/White Chenille Here's a couple of images of the finished tree. It's really hard to photograph something this large, and hopefully we'll have some better images to post a little later on. Merry Christmas)))) Save Save Save Save Save Save Save Save Save Save