Shee, did you go thru our Christman Inspiration album?
There's a lot of photos there, 144 at the moment. Tho it sounds like you've got some great stuff for the blue and white theme. I liked all your ideas and purchases from your description. Especially the cobalt crackle glass balls. What a find !!

I love the idea of several trees and themes. I haven't done a big tree in years, but have a few smaller ones to scatter around. I have a silver tinsel tree that I put all my purple ornaments on last year.

hugs, Karen

I think if it were me, I'd add the cranberry red to the blue/white tree. It would add a bit of bright "pop" to the tree, and tie into the colors you say are already in the room. It would be very beautiful, I think...especially if you go for super-elegant with that particular tree (which seems like the way you're leaning). White transparent wired ribbon for bows on the end of the branches, and royal blue wide ribbons floating down from the top could really tie everything together...

I have a problem with Christmas - mainly that I like so many different combinations on trees, but I only have one tree, so I have to "choose" which to go with (normally that results in a mish mash of colors/styles). Maybe this will be the year that we get another tree. That would help...

Good luck! Sounds like you're having fun getting ready.

Your blue and silver color theme doesn't sound at all boring to me. Perhaps you're just thinking of a store display with all the same blue type ornaments. That would be boring. But a variety of blue with the silver I think would be lovely. Of course you have to have a recording of Elvis singing "Blue Christmas" in the background. Flocking the tree would really put it over the top. I know the flocked trees are expensive to buy, but couldn't a person do it themselves with a can of fake snow?

Sharee, I added dark and light copper colored ornaments to my blue ones. It was subtle, but I really liked the mix. My blues are more in the peacock tone, though. I also had some gold and silver that I used on the inner part of the tree for added sparkle.

Funny, my husband likes blue lights too. His dad always used them on the house. I didn't care for that, so I compromised by using them on the tree. It looks really pretty from the street!

The copper sounds beautiful, Alex! I can't wait to see this tree.

Jamie, have you thought about doing garlands or several large wreaths? That way you could do more with your decorating since you only do one tree. After I saw some of the photos I put in our Inspiration Album last year, I sure liked a lot of those ideas. I use to think everybody did one big wreath and one tree. LOL. Little did I know what all you could do with ornaments and such.

Meanwhile, I'm spending my sleepless nights on the hunt for more pix for our albums. Found some last night and will probably add them tonight or tomorrow. Bless the Internet, I find so much to occupy and amuse me. LOL.

hugs, Karen

Purplemoon I did go through the Christmas album. Like a lot of the trees I see. I think my favorite is the one with draped pearls. I did buy really full two toned silver garland last year but Im not certain Im going to use it. Thought about mercury beads or pearls. Can you drape stuff and still have the draping of ribbon down the tree?

Jamie mt I love cranberry red! (obviously if my furniture is that color : )) I wasnt sure how it would look with all the blue and silver. I am going for elegant. How you do float the ribbon down the tree? I guess Im asking how do you attach it? Just twist it around the top somewhere. Tie twisties? I think my family thinks Im going a little crazy with three trees. My house isnt huge by any means. Oh well! What else am I going to do with all the ornaments engraved with my name from when I was a kid?

Neesie Yeah I think Im just picturing typical store trees with boring ball ornaments. My tree is a prelit artificial but its like 71" and rather fat. My ceilings are only 8. Point of my story, Im not sure how many ornaments Im going to need to fill it out right. Im sure its more than Im thinking. What is flocking? Is that just snow on the tips? The small tree I have for in the foyer is like that. I keep it decorated and just cover it up in the attic.

Alex That sounds really pretty! Do you have any pics? Blue must be a guy thing for sure. He wanted blue lights too. Heck hed probably want a blue tree if Id let him. : )

Sorry, no pics from last year. I will take some when I get the tree up, though. I'll be asking advice about what to add :)

The link below has some great theme/color ideas. These trees are COVERED in ornaments. I'll have to get a small tree so that my paltry collection will look fuller. I THOUGHT I had a bunch of decorations LOL! I can't imagine having to pack up more at the end of the season.

Sharee, this is the color theme I had but not at all what my tree looked like. I didn't have enough ornaments and garland. I used a variety of birds in my tree, but I also used non-theme ornaments...sentimental things I've had for years. But, you can get the idea of the color combo :)

Check out the link where this pic is. I haven't looked through all of Karen's Christmas album, yet, so I don't know if these are duplicates. Free pics to add Karen, if they are new.

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sheesharee, you had asked about another color to use in the blue and silver tree, on a shopping trip a few yrs ago I saw a blue and silver tree that also incorporated the "hot pink" balls, it did provide a "pop" to the tree.

You also asked about how many ornaments you would need for a full tree. I would say basted on having a full tree previously, at least 400-500 ornies. I would suggest to purchase at least 100 of just the simple silver ornies you can get quite cheaply at stores like Walmart and Kmart. You would use the simpler silver balls on the inside of the tree, it is an inexpensive filler and the best thing is that the silver balls act as "mirrors" reflecting the christmas lights, giving a effect to the tree "glowing" from the inside out. The more expensive and pretty silver ornies will decorate the more outside branches of the tree.

Now of course this can be quite expensive to purchase all at once. I have purchased ornies over the years so now I have plenty of ornies for the full look that I like. So if you like a less full look then it will be quicker to accomplish.

My example below is just an inexpensive 7 ft tree that is not too full, I used about 400 ornies and about 200 of the chandler prisims and about 100 glass icicles. I also incorporate silk flowers in all my trees.

This is a tree I did 2 seasons ago, just to give you an idea of a tree fairly loaded with ornies.

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Alex, I'll have to sort thru the album's trees and see if any from that site are in there. Judith, this one goes in the album, its magnificent. Thanks for all the detail information too. I'll add that to the description for folks.

hugs, Karen

Judith, question for you...how many ornaments do you end up putting on each branch? I remember reading where you said that you use the plain inexpensive ones near the inside and the more ornate ornies to the outside. Just wondering if most of your branches end up with 2 ornies on them to make it look fuller.

Alex thanks for posting that pic and for the link! Very pretty trees in there! My favorite is the first one in the link. Ive been very drawn to greens lately. I guess I should probably pick up ornaments here and there so that the tree evolves over time. I really like the idea of using ribbon down through.

Judithva your tree is so pretty! I dont know that DH will go for the hot pink balls. Does sound pretty though. The one have for my foyer has a lot of frosty pink. I cant wait to get Christmas stuff out.

Should the silver ornaments for the inside of the tree be smaller? And yeah, do you use multiple ornaments on the same branch? Ive always just put one on.

Remember how I said I was going to put another tree up in the DR? Well I found a 3 tree tonight at Value City for .$7.99!!! Its nice looking. It was even 20% off. They also had a nice looking 7 tree for $10.00! They werent prelit. I ended up with the display because there werent any boxed ones left. I think a floor tree would be too much in there.

Here's a couple pics of my LR. Tree would probably go where the tan chair is. I'll have to move some things around.

Again walls will be painted at some point. My curtains are green but they look horrible on pics. They'll probably be changed out after we paint.

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Just a slight little bump...hoping Judith will see this!

With the ribbon, I've never done it, but I see it often around here. I like that really wide ribbon with the wired edges. Form it into a bow at the top of the tree, and you should be able to use the ends to hold it on, or twist ties. Then I think I would hook several lengths of it up under the bow, and just sort of let them drape down the sides of the tree after it's all decorated, for that finished "wrapped gift" look. I may try that this year with a smaller tree in the basement.

Yes, I think I'm going to buy another tree...just a short little one.

What I normally do is get those small fabric bows that come in 6 and 12 packs, and put those on the tips of branches here and there after my tree is decorated. I'm not really a "girly girl", but I do love bows on the tree, for some reason! I have those tiny bows on the little 2ft. trees I put outside as well. :-)

Sorry, I haven't answered before, I am trying to stay caught up, but this forum is really rolling along now that the Holidays are upon us LOL

I'm not sure what you mean about how many ornies on each branch, are you talking literally about the branch with all it's little "forklets", from the inside trunk to the outside tip, or are you talking about each tip on a branch?
I will answer both questions just in case. As far as each BRANCH, there could be 8-10 ornies on a smaller not so full 7 ft tree (from the trunk to the outside), depending on how many I want to use, sometimes there are so many they are touching each other. As far as the TIPS go, often I will have 2-3 things on a tip (depending on the size of the ornie. For instance there could be a med size ball, a smaller ball or teardrop style, definately a few crystals and on the outside TIPs my glass icicles (you want them to hang freely). I did not do that tree above as heavily as in the past (that year I did 2 trees and I was exhaused LOL, so there was just enough on them to make me happy, the photo is deceiving, there are far more on it than what it appears, (plus it is decorated ALL the way around since the tree could be view at least 3/4's of the way around, so I really could not skimp.)

In the red tree above you might not be able to tell, but I used a "roping" of red poinsettas, they were about 2 ft long (purchased at walmart), I joined the ends together to make a longer poinsetta flower garland, then I just gently stuffed it in the front branches of the tree in a spiral twist down the tree. The flower garland works well because it takes up space so you can use less ornaments.

In the red tree above, the theme was red and gold and crystal. I easily used a hundred plain cheap gold balls (glass kind) from Walmart/Kmart etc, that worked as sparkely filler for the inside of the tree, when the lights were on, it just glowed a soft warm toasty white/gold color.

For your silver and blue tree I would buy lots of cheap plain, not decoration silver balls (in different sizes) to heavily fill the inside and less heavily the outside of the tree (remember they are working as mirrors/light reflectors, not to mention their normal use as decoration). You want to save the expensive decorator balls for the outside tips and such, that way the pretty ones are not buried in the tree. (Now of course if you already have loads and loads of pretty decorated ornies, you can put those to the inside of the tree), it is just that most people, especially those starting out, can onlyafford more plain and inexpensive balls rather than the expensive heavily decorated ones. But remember it is a process, I started my tree collection in my 30's after my divorce (I hardly owned any, the ex did not care too much for Christmas, so alot have been aquired over time now)

I just adore the look of silver and blue with the white lights, my DD will eventually do a tree that way. Those 2 classic colors are my favorite way to go if going with that color scheme.

My tree last year was all pink and cream, I posted picks here of it, and there are pictures on my blog. I did not put as much stuff up on it last year because I was in recovery from serious surgery, it took me a week to do it as it was LOL

This year I am going all out with my tree, not a thing will be missing this time LOL.

Sorry I hit submit instead of review Argh, I hope it makes sense, because I was not able to proof it. I so wish GW would have an EDIT button. Sighhhhh

Judith, I knew that my tree was missing something but I couldn't figure out what; after all, I had something on just about every tip. It NEVER occurred to me to put more than one thing on a tip!! Also, that's a wonderful tip you gave about putting cheaper, shiny balls toward the inside. Since I loaded up on bulbs after Christmas last year (a Garden Ridge went out of business where my sister lived), I will be able to try that! I was actually thinking of doing a purge of ornaments, but now I see that I can use everything to get the look I'm going for.

Do you have more pictures of your tree, maybe some close-ups? If they're on your blog, do you mind sharing the link for your blog? Thanks!

Here are a few closeups of the pink themed tree I did last yr, as you can see there are lots of ornies

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The overall tree, as I mentions in the other post, I did not decorate this one as heavily since I was recovering from surgery.
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Judith,
I just wanted to say that your non-heavily decorated tree looks far far better than any tree I have done. What gorgeous trees! And to top it off, you were recovering from a surgery!

Mo

Mo, thanks for the complement, but, really I did not do as much last year, I did not have any of my 300 or so crystals tear drops on it or my 200 or so glass icicles, I thought my tree looked a little naked last year, but that is just because I am so used to "my-over-the-top-over-kill" look. LOL

Here is my red tree from a few yrs ago with the crystal drops and glass icicles:

jamie - thanks for explaining. I think I will try the ribbon this year.

judith - Holy cow your tree(s) are pretty! Now I want to do red and gold!!! I'm trying to grasp putting the ornaments in the middle section. If you don't have enough to fill wouldn't it look like the color is just in the middle? I don't think I'm explaining this right. I don't think your trees look like there's vertical color in the middle. It's all well balanced. I'll have to mess with me tree. I have some of the same cystal ornaments!

Thanks for posting those pictures!

Judith, you could make a fortune just decorating Xmas trees for folks! Even tho you've explained so well how to get these beautiful effects, its just mind-boggling to me how you DO it.

hugs, Karen

Sheesharee said:

I'm trying to grasp putting the ornaments in the middle section. If you don't have enough to fill wouldn't it look like the color is just in the middle? I don't think I'm explaining this right. I don't think your trees look like there's vertical color in the middle. It's all well balanced.

Back to Me:
I will try to explain it better, sorry, so much easier to show someone in person LOL.

OK, what I ment was you would put a large amount of the plain gold balls (in this case) in the internal part of the tree. You can place them sporadically inside the tree making sure though you start at the inside (where the trunk is) with the plain gold balls. Let me make this part more clear with what I deal with.

Primary decorative ornaments I want to be able to see easily:
Primary tree decorations.
The pretty red decorative balls.
The crystal drops.
The glass icicles.
The silk flowers,in this case red(this is something I choose to use)

Secondary:
The plain inexpensive gold balls. These are ment primarily for the inside "stuffing of the tree", BUT, some are used in a much smaller amount on the outside areas of the tree (parts you can see) for bringing in the gold ball as a SMALL ACCENT.

So in answer to your question you would be treating your plain balls as a filler and tiny accent, NOT as the primary decoration. You would be using the PRIMAIRY balls on the outside, icicles, crystal drops, silk flowers.

So that means you would buy 100 or so of the cheap balls for the inside and small outside accents.
You would then be buying the PRIMARY balls, crystals, icicles in much larger amounts (I use at least a total of 300-500 of these primary items)

Now my DD doesn't like as much as an over kill tree as me (although anyone coming to her home and seeing her tree is just in awe of it) So she uses the same items as I do basicly, but cuts the amount of ornament down to about HALF of what I do, and I think her tree is very beautiful.

Now, I am just explaining how I decorate a tree, it doesn't mean that it is everyone elses taste. In the evolution of your tree you will come to the realization of what is best for you.

My tree that I am doing this year was an evolving process, it took me quite a few years to get where I am, that is because since I am not wealthy, I have to do it a little bit at a time every year. I am happy to say, that I don't think I have to buy any more for the cream, crystal, and gold tree. Thank goodness! LOL

Oh, yes, and as a bonus I can used the glass icicles and crystals with any color theme of tree, they fit right on in, so that saves me money too.

This is an example of my cream color theme on some stacking plates.
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Does that make more sense?

Sharee, I used all of the ornaments that weren't in the greatest shape, anymore, on the inside of the tree. It does make a big difference in the overall look. I've purchased boxes of older ones at garage sales and thrift stores for 50 cents, so it didn't break the bank. Also use ribbon or garlands to take up more space. The end result gives you so much depth and it's worth the amount of work when you see it all done. I also wind the lights from the center trunk down each branch for maximum twinkle :)

I have a hard time enjoying some of the labor (putting up and taking down), but while it's up I'm beaming!

Alex said "I have a hard time enjoying some of the labor (putting up and taking down), but while it's up I'm beaming!"

I LOVE putting them up while watching Christmas movies. Taking them down -- not so much! LOL!

Judith, what can I say about your trees? Breathtaking! Maybe we can have a session of that in the class? Giving "volume" to decorations without overkill? I think I've pinpointed that as one of my decorating skills weaknesses.

Judith - thank you for explaining that! I'll have to mess with it this year and see what happens. Kicking myself for not buying a bunch of different sized silver balls I saw at a thrift store awhile back. Heck, they might still be there.
Love the white decorations also! I'm hoping the stores get a better variety out. I haven't seen anything breathtaking in blue. Saw some pretty ones on ebay but there's only ONE and they want, I think, a lot of money for them. Guess this is part of the over time thing? Do you have any single ornaments on your tree? Or are most of yours from sets? Saw some neat silver mercury ball steams online. Thought about buying some of them to do in clusters.

Alex - I can't wait to see your tree!

Pdg -I'm with you on watching Christmas movies while decorating. It's usually Home Alone for me. Any of them will do though. I also like the idea of giving volumn without overkill. I look at some of my own setups and think it looks junky/cluttered.

pdg777, thank you for your nice comment:), I do the same as you, I put on a Christmas movie or turn on the Christmas music! I admit taking down the tree is the worst part!

You asked about hints on a full tree without overkill, hmmm.. you have seen my photos haven't you? LOLOL, I am the biggest christmas decorating over-kill person around LOL So I don't know how much I could help there. Best hint is to keeping it balanced whether you are doing a minimal or a fully decked tree. My DD has basically the same tree as I have with the same ornaments, (I had bought ornaments for years for her "hope chest" so she had a great headstart on her decorations compared to many people.
But like I said, if I used 500 ornies, she pretty much cuts that amount down by half, and her ornaments go on with as much precision as possible (she is an accountant, enough said LOLOLO)

Sheesharee, yes, many, many ornaments are "singular", not bought in a box, the best places for the special ones are (at least in my area) are from the local Garden Centers, I have bought quite a few from there. But I have bought lots of boxed sets of pretties affordably, I have seen real improvements of ornaments at Target, Walmart and Kmart. I have purchased alot of singular ornies from upscale stores in the mall like Dillards Macys etc. The key for that is keeping in your decorating theme and color of course. If doing a rustic tree, stay in that them, if you are doing a "bling" tree, then go with the blingy ornaments. It won't look junky/cluttered if you stay in theme and good placement. HTHs

Hi to all. I'm more of a lurker here than a poster, but I am really loving Judith's Christmas tree pictures.

Judith, do you mind telling where you have gotten your crystals from? Do you have different shapes and how big are they? I would never have thought of using crystals, but they're absolutely stunning.

Judith,
I stopped at a light store and asked about ordering some chandalier crystal drops. The girl said they would be about $3.00 or more each depending on what I ordered. Does that sound about right to you? Like Cheryll, I would love to know where you got yours. I don't have enough stuff to fill my tree yet. It needs some serious "Bling". I think the crystal would be perfect.
It is mainly blue,white,and silver with different colored birds as well as a few homemade ornies that I can't bear to leave off for sentimental reasons.
Betty

PS Still dreaming of a pink tree one day!