8 Steps to Decorating a Christmas Tree Like a Designer

hello my name is Jennifer DAV Ford I am an interior designer an educator and A store owner and in today's video I'm going to teach you the eight steps to decorating a Christmas tree like a designer so stay tuned now before we get started make sure you subscribe to the channel and follow me on Instagram at Jennifer decorates now I know when you see a tree fully decorated the thought of trying to copy that seems overwhelming so that's why I'm going to break it down to eight steps to make it really easy for you so let's get started step number one is fluff your tree now I know that seems so simple but I promise it makes such a difference now let me give you a tip when I'm decorating trees I wear an apron one to keep a lot of stuff off my clothes but the second thing is I get an apron with pockets so that I can keep ornament hooks scissors and everything I need right there so I'm not constantly looking for my items all right let's get this tree flipped step number two is your lights now I don't care what price point you pay for trees it never fails you're two or three you get it out of the box and you have lights that don't work that's the case with my tree but I found the these lights they are called cluster fairy lights they are beautiful they are LED lights on a movable wire and the really cool thing about these is you can time them they will turn on for eight hours and turn off in 8 hours turn on exactly the same time the next day these are just going to add another layer of lighting to my tree and look amazing I will put a link in the description of my video so you can purchase these as well here's how I'm going to place them on the tree I'm not going to do the edges I'm actually going to weave it in and out and in and out I got three boxes of these so that my tree will be super bright I love how thin the wire is and can move around the little branches and the other thing that makes these lights so wonderful if one light goes out your entire strand will still stay lit one more thing about these great lights they are 20 feet long so if you have a 7ft tree you're going to only need two boxes and if you have a 9-ft tree like I have you're going to need three [Music] boxes number three if you want to add a little little more light to your tree or maybe you've got some areas that need to be filled in purchase these inexpensive glitter ornaments they're plastic and you're going to take and put them all the way into the tree and hook them with an ornament hook and do that all the way from the top to the bottom and it will reflect a lot of light but I'm not going to do that cuz I think my fairy lights are going to do the trick number four if you want to add some Garland Now's the Time to do it I chose some beautiful natural colored wood Garland I think it's going to be beautiful on the [Music] [Music] tree St step five it's time to add your Ribbon let me show you how I store my ribbon ribbon's expensive I want it to last a few yours I will put tissue paper in between each flute and store it away in the box and the only thing that goes in that box is my ribbon all right let's get some ribbon on this tree here's how I'm going to add ribbon to the tree cut a piece about 36 in and you're going to fold it in half and make a loop and then get some floral wire and wire that Loop tight and now you're going to put it on your tree and here's the thing don't wire it just to the end of the branch that's not going to look good I want you to come in a little bit to the tree and wire it in and then I've already cut my tails at an angle bring your Tails down and then take that Loop and kind of lay it down and that is it now here is an easy way to get your Ribbon dispersed around your tree evenly and that is what I call the diamond method I'm going to put a bow here one here one here and one there and I'm going to continue that pattern all the way around the tree and it's a wonderful formula to have your Ribbon dispersed on your tree evenly all right I'm going to get the rest of this ribbon on the tree here's a way to kind of change it up just a little still creating that one Loop but if you leave one tail really long and put some floral wire around it then bring it up into the next Branch you're creating a another loop and a shorter tail it's just a different way to change it up now I'm going to put the tree topper on my daughter came up with this idea if you can't reach the top of your tree put the topper on the tree before you put the tree together I thought that was pretty smart here's how I made my topper so I made a bow with four loops and I have a video on that I'll put a link in the description of this video but I made three of them and the reason I did that is because I'm going to put them all three around the top of the tree and it will look like one continuous boat the next ribbon I'm going to add is new this year to my tree I found it at Market very thin about half an inch I'm going to do this in a waterfall effect but the beads on this ribbon are really going to catch the light for this ribbon I'm not actually using floral wire I'm just using the branches of the tree the ones that are closest to the middle that are easy to [Music] bend step number six is adding pix and stems to your tree now I like to add another type of greenery to give a little bit of depth to the tree and then I'm always going to want to add stems that have a little bit of bling a lot of times I'll get a big stem and I'm going to snip different small pieces because there's no sense in wasting a lot of stem too far into the tree so I'm going to first start to look at holes that are in the tree and I'm going to put the stem in there now sometimes I'll put it straight in but sometimes I'll kind of angle it up so it'll cover more area of the [Music] tree that easy [Music] when you're putting the stems into your tree don't go even with your tree make them stick out just a little bit farther than the actual branches and that's what makes your tree have so many different layers and it just makes the tree look more full and more elegant step number seven is time to add the ornaments the first ones I'm going to add are these beautiful gold stars that have little mirrors in them they're going to really let the light pop off of them and look stunning now I'm going to add the rest of my ornaments and I'm going to start with the biggest one first medium and then small great piece of advice if you want really good Christmas ornaments shop at the end of the year and use them for next year and when you open up that box you'll be surprised cuz I promise you you'll forget you can bought them for yourself now when you're adding ornaments to a tree I like to use a hook and not a string for most of my ornaments especially round ones so that they look like they're growing off the tree and then sometimes when I do put it on a branch I'm going to pull that Branch down a little bit so it hides the top of that ornament and really looks like it's nestled into the tree if you get large glass ornaments I really recommend especially if they're ones you spend a lot of money on take that tip off the top hot glue it on because I I've had times where that top fell off and the ornament crashed and broke so glue those Tops on the last step is to add these droplets if you want to take a tree over the top droplets is the way to do it don't cut these strings off because they're fishwire and they don't show but this is going to make this tree look absolutely stunning e all right that's the eight steps to decorating a tree like a designer I'll put some links in the description of this video for some of the items that I used in this Christmas tree and I'll see you in the next video