Designer Christmas Tree Decorating Tutorial

Hey you guys, it's Kristen here with Decorators Warehouse, and today we're going to be walking you through the steps to create a beautiful designer Christmas tree similar to the ones that you see here at our store in Arlington, Texas. So we'll be going step to step. This is a process that we use for almost any theme, so you can just adapt it to your style. You can make it whimsical, you can make it elegant, but the same rules are generally going to apply to any style. Okay, the first step of decorating any tree is to consider the base that you're going to be working with. Think about your space, your home. Do you have a wide space to fill, do you have a narrow space? Is it going to be up against the wall? Is it going to be in the middle of the room where you're going to be decorating all the way around? Something else to consider is your ceiling height. If you have really tall ceilings, you're not going to want to use a seven and a half foot tree because that's going to be dwarfed in your space. So consider your space when deciding your tree. This is a Newman tree. It's a seven and a half foot natural evergreen. I love this tree for decorating because it has inset branches, which gives you some wonderful pockets for decorating. It's 56 inches in diameter, so it's kind of a mid-sized tree, and we're going to be decorating the half of you today. So this is a pre-lit tree, but the first thing that you always do when you're decorating is to add on your lights. I realize this already has some lights, but I want that extra sparkle, so I'm going to be adding in some of our cluster lights. They come in 10, 20, and 45 foot strands. I like to use the 45 foot strands when decorating a tree. So let me show you those. This is a very simple, fun little thing that we like to do. This is our magic light wand, and it has a receiver box, and I am simply going to plug my lights into the receiver box. This goes into the wall, and now my lights are controllable by a remote control. Voila. And it's so fun, and it's so practical. Rather than getting behind the tree to turn them on, I can just do it with one push of a button. So these are the cluster lights. This 45 foot strand has 1,504 lights on it. They're cluster lights because it's really compact. You're getting a lot of lights per foot. And what I'm going to do is I'm simply going to start at the bottom of my tree, and I don't want a ton of light, but I want that twinkle, that glow. So actually let me change the function. This is the waves. This is my favorite. It's just very elegant. And I'm just going to kind of run them inside the tree close to the pole, and I'm just going to be working up and down the tree. Just kind of going a little bit side to side, not in any particular fashion. And then when I get to the top, I'm just going to work back down, and I'm just kind of stuffing them in there to get that twinkle. And I'm going to continue to do this until I've gone around the whole tree. Since I'm just doing the half view, I'm going to stick with one set of 45 foot lights. If I was going all the way around, I probably would add one more to make two. I finished adding my lights in, and I just want to show you the difference. This is the tree without the cluster lights, and then this is the tree with the cluster lights. So you get an extra 1,500 bulbs that way. I think it makes a really nice effect. So we're going to go ahead and move into the topper. So for this topper, I have chosen four styles. When choosing your styles for the topper, kind of the key is, first of all, height. You want some height to the pieces that you choose for your topper, because this is going to extend beyond the top of the tree. And the other key is the texture. So I've chosen four. You'll notice every single one has a different texture. I've got this platinum piece that's really light and airy, a more concentrated berry that's going to be a little bit heavier and serve as a good anchoring point for our topper. And then this one, this is probably my favorite piece in the whole store. It's just gorgeous, and it picks up the light with the jewels. And then we've got this long, feathery one that's just light and just kind of finishes everything out very nice. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to come up on my ladder here, and when you're inserting your topper pieces, I'm always going to work really close to the pole here. And I'm going to start with my heaviest style first, and I'm just going to slide that in along the pole like this. Okay, and so I'm going to work all of a style at a time before I move on to the next style. So I'm going to use all of these pieces first. And since I'm just doing the half view, I don't need quite as many. And actually, I'm just going to wrap this little branch here to kind of anchor it. I'm going to do three of these. Now our general rule of thumb, now this is just kind of an estimate, but we use about 30 sprays on a full 7 1⁄2 foot tree. Okay, and it's usually about five styles. You can adjust that a little bit, like I'm using four here. But it's about five styles, five to six of each piece. On a 9 foot tree, we use about 35 sprays. So again, about five styles, six to seven of each style. All right, and now what I'm going to do, since those are placed, I'm going to come in with my next style, and I'm actually going to use a different color. I kind of want a mix of different colors when I'm doing my topper so it's not so heavy in one color. But I'm going to use this platinum piece next, and I'm just going to kind of shape it out a little bit, and then I'm going to come and I'm going to place it in between the pieces that I've already placed. And again, I'm just going to kind of slide down that hole. Wrap a little branch around it, same here, come kind of like right in between, slide down that hole. And then I'll do one over here on this side as well. Okay, and see how it's kind of taking shape? I'm going to go ahead and continue with my other two styles, and you will see the final product at the end. Okay, so I have finished my topper for this particular tree, this midsize seven and a half foot with the half view. I used three of the large piece, the really heavy piece, and then I used four of each of the other styles. Now, if I was doing a full view, I would want to use more than that. We are going to go into our next layer, which is going to be the ribbon. And generally, we'll use maybe three to four different styles on a Christmas tree. So I've picked out a few different ones that I'm going to show you. I always like to use a wired edge ribbon. It's going to hold its shape nicely, and it's just so much easier to work with. So pretty much everything we carry here in our store is going to be a wired edge. But what we're going to do, so I'm going to use this really pretty platinum sheer. And I will come back and show you, but we're actually going to make some bunny ears that we'll be inserting into the topper. That'll be really pretty and give it a nice, finished, polished look. And then we're going to be layering two different styles in the body of our tree. And there's several different ways that you can use ribbon. I'm going to show you just something that works really well for us here, and that's cutting the ribbon and working with smaller sections. So I've chosen this really pretty red sequin wired edge ribbon. These are all 10 yards. And then I've got this gorgeous platinum glitter, which a platinum glitter, I mean, that's just always a beautiful base for pretty much any style of tree. Just a solid color. If I were to have a pattern, I would put the pattern on top and the solid underneath. But let's go ahead and look at the topper piece. So what I'm going to be doing, I'm going to make a bunny ear. And the way that I'm going to do it, it's just two loops. I make one loop about 8 inches or so. Then I'm going to make a fold and make one more loop that's about the same length. Okay, and you can just kind of pull them up to see. Okay, and then I'm going to scrunch all of that in my hand. Going to take a piece of 18 gauge forest wire. I'm going to wrap it around the base. Make sure you do it tight. And then I'm going to cut this. Okay, and see how the florist wire makes kind of like a stem? I'm going to use that to pick these into my topper. Okay, and what I'm going to do, I'm just going to make a lot of them. Usually we use about two rolls of all bunny loops. And you just kind of, it's kind of hard because it's so flimsy. You can fold it if you need to. And you just kind of pick them in so that it looks like a bow. Okay, and I'm going to do that all around the base here. And then I'm going to stick a few kind of in the middle of the topper to give it that polished, finished look. I've added my loops to my topper and now I'm going to go ahead and work the ribbon into the body of the tree. So there's several ways that you can do this. Some people like to go around the tree. Some like to go through the tree, and that's okay as well. What we're going to kind of do is work in smaller sections, and we're going to zigzag through the tree, kind of in that motion. And I'm going to layer, so I have my two ribbons that I showed you earlier. I'm just going to do a quick little cut here on the end, and then I am going to, we're going to start close to the top, kind of where our topper meets the green part of the tree. We're going to leave a tail about eight inches. I'm going to insert it a little ways into the branches, and I'm going to wrap the branches around it to secure it in place, okay? And then I'm going to come in at an angle, and I'm going to do this kind of loosely. And I'm going to come down in this direction. Again, I'm going to go about a third of the way into the branch, and I'm going to wrap the greenery around it, okay? And then I'm just going to kind of pull those apart a little bit. I'm going to leave a tail, again, about eight inches, and I'm going to cut at a diagonal, okay? And we're going to continue that throughout the tree. So for my next one, I'm going to start kind of in the middle here. So this is going to be right in the middle of that, and I'm going to go in the opposite direction. So I'll insert it, I will wrap that around. I'm going to come in this way, and find a good spot to secure it. Again, I'm going to wrap it around, pull it a little bit looser, that's a little too tight, and I am going to cut, okay? And I will continue doing that around the whole tree. All right, the next step is we're going to add in not all of our ornaments, but just our larger ornament balls. So I have, again, different sizes, different textures, some are round. And I have some that are more of like a finial type shape. But just right now, we're just focusing on the bigger pieces, which are going to be tucked deeper into the tree. I'm going to start with these, and I'm going to use an odd number. I'm probably going to use about five of each of these on this half tree. But what I'm going to do, I'm going to kind of tuck them about halfway back into the tree to fill in holes. And I always want to balance my tree, so if I have one here, my next one's going to go on this side. And then I'll come back over here and kind of work through the tree, making sure that it stays balanced. The good thing to do also is to periodically step back and look at your tree and see how your holes are being filled up, and then you can always move things around as well if you need to. So I'm just going to go ahead and add in my balls, and then we'll move on to the next step. All right, as you can see, all of my larger ornament balls have been placed on the tree. And I did them at varying depths. The larger they are, the farther into the tree they go. Some of the smaller and the different shaped ones are on the outside. And I still have smaller ornaments and smaller balls that I'm going to place onto the tree as one of our last steps, the finishing touches. But what I'm going to go ahead and do now is we're going to add in florals. And so one thing that we like to do is we create floral clusters. And basically, it's a combination of flowers and sprays that are tied together, and then inserted into the tree as a larger focal item. So for this particular one, I have two florals, and I'm trying to bring in both of the colors of our tree, so I have red as well as platinum, and then I have a platinum spray, and I have a red spray. Okay, and see how this is going to give us some nice, airy dimension? That's going to kind of droop off of the tree, and it's just going to look beautiful. So what I did, I took all four stems. I held them together, and then I took one of the stems, I don't know if you can see it here, but I took one stem and I wrapped it around all of the stems together. So what it did, it created one piece, one floral cluster that I'm going to insert all together. This is going to give it a really polished designer look. And again, I'm kind of going to zigzag through the tree. I want to create a balanced look all the way around. So, and I'm not going to start super high up. These are a little big. I want the scale to match, so I'll put some smaller florals and single stems up here. But I'll go ahead and put this one in here. If it's too long, what you can actually do is take your stems, bend it in half, okay, and then insert it like that. So I'm also looking for the places where I secured my ribbon. I want to kind of conceal those, so that's a great place to stick either a single stem floral or a floral cluster. So I'll just start here, and I'm just going to lift a branch, insert it in. And then I'm going to take some of the greenery and kind of twist it around the cluster as a whole to hold it in place. See how that gives it some dimension and some texture. So I'm going to continue working my floral stems all the way around. Since I have one here, I'm going to go to the other side of the tree and continue. Okay, so all of my clusters are placed. I used about five on this half tree. Kind of a good rule of thumb for me, if I'm going all the way around, I like to use the number of clusters as the number of feet on the tree. For example, seven and a half foot tree all the way around, I probably would use seven clusters, nine on a nine foot tree, 12 on a 12 foot tree. Now, that's kind of like a mid-sized tree. If you're going really big, really wide, you can go even higher than that. But anyway, I've placed my clusters. I also like to bring in some single stem florals. These are generally flowers that are bigger in size, and I just place them by themselves to fill up holes as well. So I've chosen three for this tree. Gorgeous magnolia, it's huge. And then I've got this really pretty red poinsettia, and then this one as well. I did need some smaller scale to fill spaces at the top. So I'm going to go ahead and place those as well. Like I said, I'm going to use the smaller scale up top, and I'm going to kind of zigzag through the tree. All right, all of my florals are placed, and I'm actually going to go ahead and start wrapping up my tree. As you can tell, it's really taken shape. It just needs a little bit of filler. So what we're going to do next, we're going to use just some different berries, different filler berries, and kind of come in, and anywhere that we see holes, we're going to fill those in. I used about five of my clusters on this half tree. I used three each of my larger flowers, the magnolia and the poinsettia, and I used about four of the smaller ones. So these, I'm just going to kind of fill in wherever I see the holes. And this is going to give a nice dimension to your tree. And so what I can do also, just kind of wrap a branch around it to secure it in place, and then just kind of pull those out to fill in that whole area. I just wanted to take a quick second and show you some of the other fillers that I'm using. This is a single stem. It's a gorgeous. It has a lot of different types of foliage, including some iced fruit. And then this one is really nice as well. It's got a leaf, it's got this airy texture, and then it's got a berry. So these are a bit heavier, so I'm looking for bigger holes that I can use to fill in with these. So I'm going to go ahead and finish placing, and then we'll do our very last layer. Wow, our tree has really come together. So all of the big pieces are in place. All of our florals are in place, and our filler berries. And it's time for the final finishing touch. We're going to add in smaller ornaments, ornaments that give interest to the tree. Now earlier, we did just kind of your more plain solid balls, some with a little bit of texture, but now we're going to add in more of your specialty types, and some that really create some interest. So let me show you what I've chosen. I've got this gorgeous ball with a lot of detail. That's going to stand out really nicely. I've got some smaller ornaments that are snowflakes, and I picked a couple different styles. And then these beautiful red finials. That's going to be a really nice touch. And then some of these platinum finials as well. So I've got a lot of different textures. It's just going to create a very beautiful final product. And then I've got these leaves as well. Okay, and generally you can work in odds. I'm going to use either three or five of each of these on this half tree. So let me show you one thing. Now when I'm hanging the ornaments, I could use a lot of these pieces that I've added in for dimension and actually hang them directly onto that. So I'm going to just slip this on about halfway up the branch. Now these smaller specialty ornaments, we want them to hang farther out on the tree rather than tucking them into the branches. These are the ones that we want to showcase. So if you have a collection that you've gathered over time, this is a great time to really showcase that collection. So I could put it on and I could do that, but that's not very pretty. So I'm actually going to twist it around a few times so that it hangs close to the branch. And then I can kind of bend the branch upward to get the placement that I want. And then with the finial, same thing. I want to hang them on the outside of the branch, twist it around, and then bend it up so I can get the placement that I want. And I'm just going to continue until I've used all of my ornaments. All right, you guys, that wraps this up. We are all finished with our designer Christmas tree, and I hope you enjoyed this tutorial. If you did, be sure to like us on Facebook, subscribe to our channel on YouTube. We're also on Instagram and Pinterest as well. We're Decorators Warehouse in Arlington, and we hope to see you soon. Bye!