CHRISTMAS TREE DECORATING | Watch This BEFORE You Decorate Your Tree

Hey guys and welcome back to Live Your Style. I'm Shara and this is Scout and today we're of course going to do more Christmas videos. Today we're going to actually work on decorating a Christmas tree. If you guys have not been following along or you missed some of the Christmas videos that I've put up the last few weeks, well good news! You'll have a lot of binge watching this weekend. You're welcome! If you guys are new and have not yet hit that subscribe button, go ahead and click it because we love adding new subscribers to the Live Your Style fam. So join us. Give this video a thumbs up if you love Christmas. So basically in this video I wanted to show you guys how I'm decorating my tree this year. How I'm making it feel different. Every year I try to make my Christmas decorations in my tree look and feel different and that can be a challenge when you live in a really small 500 square foot apartment and you've been here for the last three years. So I'm getting super creative this time. I'm going to switch around a few things and I can't wait to show you guys. Also, remember most of the things in this video are shoppable. I will put them in the description box below to be linked and I'll also put them on the blog so hopefully you guys can get these things if you're interested and I know a lot of you guys ask me questions about them so hopefully you can just find them below. Okay, are you ready to get all Christmassy up in her? That's a weird way to say that. But okay, let's get started. Number one, figure out where your Christmas tree is going to go. Okay, so when I was thinking about Christmas, we have a very small apartment and our very first year we had our Christmas tree where our dining room is. We didn't have a dining room table that first year so it worked out great. Then the second year I wanted to make it feel different and I got a half Christmas tree. It had a flat back which was really cool. I put it up against the window and it felt super fun. The tree wasn't as nice as the original tree and it was a lot smaller so I wanted to go back to using the original Christmas tree again. However, where was I going to put it? Our house is super small so I had to get kind of creative. So I asked Tyler if him and a friend would come and take half of our sofa. Yes, we have an L sectional. He took half the sofa down to the garage and opened up a nice little section by our bookcase. I'm going to put our tree right there. Hopefully it's going to fit. We haven't really set it up yet so wish me luck and I'll keep you posted. If you guys are a part of the Live It Journal, you guys are going to be in luck because today you guys are getting an awesome journal entry all about where you guys should put your tree, some tips and some tricks on location placement. So if you guys haven't signed up for that, you're going to want to because you'll get a lot of great information on mixing it up for the holidays and making it feel different even if you have some of the same decor pieces to use every single year. Okay, you guys want to see how we set up this tree and how it looks and how it turned out and how to do it? Okay, let's go on to number two. Number two is going to require a few things. One, long sleeves. And number two, gloves. You can do rubber gloves, you can do regular gloves. But I only have rubber gloves, so let's get started. Now this is specifically helpful if you guys have artificial trees. If you guys don't have artificial trees, you get the real thing, then you may not have to do this step because you can't move your branches. Now, artificial trees are a great investment. They allow you to do a lot more creative things because they're all wired so you can really move the branches around where you want them, but they don't smell like a real tree so that's like the only downside. I happen to film these videos in October so they don't sell real Christmas trees at this point in time. So I usually do the artificial thing. Now if you guys get a real tree, this is the time you also want to add your lights. Sometimes I like to add little twinkle lights into my tree branches once I have them all separated. But when you have an artificial tree, it comes when you get it out of the box. It's all squished together like a tight little pull and you want to separate your branches out. So that just means moving them around, giving them some air, some space, and you want to give a nice little platform. So I usually go around, I pull each layer down, and I separate my branches. And the reason you want to wear gloves is really just to avoid scratching your arms and your hands up because they can be pretty itchy at the end of this. It's like rolling in grass but like times 10 because it's fake and it's pointy and it hurts. Ready, set, go. Whenever I want to add in some fading twinkle lights, I get some of this Velcro wrap stuff and I cut a piece that's big enough to fit around the battery pack of the fading twinkle light. And then I just put that on the inside spine of the tree and I wrap it around the branch just to make sure that it's secured. And I do this to all of them. That way at night time if I want to turn them off or if they don't have automatic timers, I know exactly where to look to the spine of the tree and I can turn them all off at once. Another pro tip here, I used to always recommend you guys get these foot stompers to connect your trees to so at the end of the night you could just click it off or click it on. You guys can still do that if you do not have a smart home thing like an Alexa or a Google home, but if you have one of those, you don't need this guy, and you can just plug your Christmas tree into a smart plug and then tell Alexa to turn the tree on or turn the tree off. Okay, I forgot the question of the day. Question is, what do you prefer, artificial tree or a live real tree? Leave me your comments below. Number three, add these little nifty things called spinners. Okay, so these are very special, taking your Christmas to the next level items, okay? These are spinners. I don't know if you guys have heard of them before, but they're magic. They have these little hooks on the bottom and you hook your ornament onto it. You want to pick a fun ornament that has something to look at on all sides of it or is sparkly or shiny or something like that and you actually plug this end into the Christmas light when you take it out. So, this is what you do. So, you unhook your Christmas light, you take the bulb out and it will turn the other lights off around it. Then you take your spinner and you stick it right where the light was, it turns all the lights back on and it starts to spin. Now, once we get this going and you guys can see when we get the ornaments on, you'll see how special the spinners are, so stay tuned for that. Okay, number four, we can finally add our tree skirt. The tree skirt acts as the base, so you want to get something that really grounds the area. Little tip that I always do, I told you guys last year, I crumple up some tissue paper and I put it underneath because sometimes the tree skirt looks kind of like, I don't know, sunken in if it doesn't have something to lift it up a little. So, you guys could use pillows if you have like the inner filling of pillows, it almost looks like fake snow. You can put that underneath it or you can use tissue paper or whatever you have on hand, kind of give it some body. Number five, add some picks into your tree to fill the holes. Okay, so this is what inspired my tree this year, specifically this little guy. How cute! So, I love the color of these berries and I'm going for a very merry Christmas theme this year. And this little guy here totally kind of just depicted the style. So I went for some more light green kind of frosted greens that are almost like sage looking shade of green, not a true dark green like I did last year. And then I wanted this frosted berry color, so nothing too red, nothing too dark, but kind of like a nice little deep berry, if you know what I mean. So, I'm going to take some of these picks, I got a couple different styles, and I'm going to start filling them in the tree to kind of see how I can make it look fuller and a little bit kind of bring it more to life. So, let's do it! Look at all those picks! They're done. Time to add garland and ornaments. Number six, add your ribbon and extra garland. Okay, so this year I'm actually not going to use that much ribbon. I kind of feel like the ribbon that I have, not really any ribbon, it kind of makes it feel a little bit more glam. So I'm not going to do a ton of bows, but if you guys do add ribbon, I would suggest a technique where you start on the inside next to the spine of the tree, and you bring your ribbon out, and you go into the spine area of another branch. And you kind of, you don't want it to be too bubbled, but you kind of want to like go diagonally down. That way you're not just wrapping the tree on the outside, you kind of move it in and out, and give it some depth, and you'll be good to go. Now if you guys use garland, like I am, you kind of do the same thing, but it's just, you know, it's a process of trial and error. So you're going to put it up there, you'll step back, you'll go, eh, not really in love with it, you'll try it again, and then eventually you'll figure it out. So don't be too hard on yourself on this step, just kind of have fun with it and see where it takes you. Number seven, time to add your ornaments. So basic rule of thumb is you want to start with your bigger ornaments first, and you want to put them lower. And as you move up the tree, you will gradually get smaller and smaller and smaller. You also want to try to put the larger ornaments that are more spherical, like the round ones, in the back to fill up some of those holes that you might still have. It's important when you're doing your picks, and I probably should have said this earlier, but when you guys do those picks, you don't necessarily want to fill up every single hole of your tree, because then there won't be any room for ornaments. You'll have some holes filled with picks, and then the other holes where there still is some remaining space, you're going to put some bigger ornaments, and then little ones as you work your way up. Now, after I add my basic plain ornaments, then I go in and add my specialty ornaments that are more like shapes, or little memorabilia things that Tyler and I have, or maybe like words, or like a little nativity scene. I have a couple little ornaments that are kind of sentimental, kind of sweet, that we always put in our tree, and I put those on at the very end, after I put all of these guys in. Number eight, last but not least, a tree topper. Now, you guys can do a star, you can do an angel, you can do whatever you want. I like putting bows on the tops of my trees, because I just think it's cute, and then I have this little sign that says Noelle, that I put underneath it, and I just think it's perfect. Finishes off the tree with a little pizzazz. Okay you guys, that is all I have for you today. I hope you guys enjoyed decorating my Christmas tree with me today, and I hope you guys are having so much fun decorating your own trees. You guys, I recommend you watch this video while you're decorating your tree, that way you guys can follow along step by step. You can go back and re-watch certain segments if you need additional tips on how I did certain things, and I know that your trees are going to turn out beautiful, and I cannot wait to see them. If you guys do decorate a tree for Christmas this year, be sure to post it on Instagram, and tag me, because I want to see it. My Instagram handle is at SharaStevens, I'll write it down here, and if you're not following, go follow me there, and post your tree. If you guys love the way this tree turned out, give it a thumbs up, I couldn't find my thumb, give it a thumbs up, and leave me your comments below. Don't forget to answer if you guys like artificial trees or real trees, and I'll see you guys not next, I mean next week, but it's going to be not Wednesday, it's going to be Monday, for another design style Christmas series, video, whatever, you know what I mean. Okay, thanks for watching guys, I'll see you then, bye. Bye.