Interior Designer Christmas Tree Tip & Tricks

Welcome to an extra festive edition of Happiest Places Home, the interior design channel. If you're into interior design, you'll love it here. In this video, you'll discover tips and tricks from an interior designer to make your tree even more magical this year. These are little things that will make all the difference. I have ribbon techniques for you. We'll talk about taking a large collection of ornaments and making them more cohesive so that it looks very designer. I'll tell you my personal secret for making your tree have a little extra sparkle. An $18 hack for that extra twinkle. Plus a $6 hack to make your tree have a little extra shine. A method for making your pesky tree topper stand up straight. An innovation on sprays for 2025. The easiest ornament DIY. And finally, an extremely affordable way to make any tree look completely contemporary in an instant, if you wanted that. We're going step by step from this box to a completely decorated tree. I'm going to tell you what went into selecting my tree. I was looking for an eight foot. For some reason, so many companies sell a seven and a half foot or a nine, and they skip by that eight foot. Some of them have them, but it's hard to find. And I feel like it's hard to find a really good one for a low price. And I did. I was actually shopping for trees all summer trying to find the right one. And when I did, I contacted the company, asked them if they wanted to participate in this video, and they did say yes. So I'm going to tell you the specifics as a gratitude for the donation of this tree to this video. It's by a company called Costway. Like I said, eight feet, and it's got 450 warm white lights and eight lighting modes. It has two different types of leaves, but one of the reasons why I picked this one is two. I know that you guys like to save money, and I found an eight foot tree in the $200 range. Okay, so that's pretty good. I also have a 10% discount for you. All of that's in the description box. But the main thing was I wanted something that looked like a Norway spruce. I feel like that is a nice and full tree throughout. I like the upturned nature of the needles, and I think it looks very natural. So that's what went into this, and I'm really happy with it. So if you like it too, yes, please use my link in the description box, okay? Now, fluffing your tree is essential. Any video will tell you that. But one of the tricks that I use is to make sure that as I fluff, I'm fluffing with each stem going up in an upturn. So you know you're separating those pine stems. You're separating them and just doing a little upward arc with each one because they will go down with your heavy designer-esque ornaments, you know? And you want to start out up because they will go down. You really need to get in there and get every single little branch and take your time with it. Put on a movie, not that I could because I didn't want to have copyright issues. I have Christmas music going on in the background thanks to Mr. Happiest Place. He likes to be the DJ on tree decorating day rather than decorating the tree. I'm enjoying some really nice apple spice coffee that he found at Aldi. Random tip, I always wear long-sleeve, very lightweight shirts when I'm doing this part because those branches, just like a real tree, could really poke at you. And that's another reason why you wear the gloves that they provide. Now one of my insider favorite tips is happening right now. You take clear ornaments that can reflect light and you put them right in the middle of the tree at the pole. You can hang them right from those hinges. As many as you can. I just did a dozen. I bought mine at At Home. They were like five dollars last year. I checked and they do have them again this year. In fact, I did buy some other things for this tree at At Home. Anything that you'll see that I'm using will be linked. But now look how they pick up the light as I move. Now this tree is not on sparkle mode. It had plenty of light modes as you saw, but that's just my one of my favorite tricks. And then another thing I like to do is you can find these really inexpensive twinkling strings of lights. They work by battery. And if you weave these in, and it doesn't have to be in any pattern, just weave them to spread them out as much as you can. And when you're in the mood for an extra twinkle, because normally when you have your tree lights on, you're just relaxing, you know, you don't need this. But if you were having people over or it's a special meal, special movie night, whatever, game night, then you can put your little flip your switches on your battery lights and then just have a very gentle twinkle with your solid mode lights. Because I like the tree on the solid mode. I don't need a lot of twinkle in my life. That sounded so stupid, sorry. But when you're having people over, this is really nice. So I always put them underneath. I've been doing this for a few years now. And the first set that I ever bought was from Crate and Barrel. And now they sell them very inexpensively at Five Below, Target, all over the place. Mine are from Target. I'll tag them. So the other thing I like to do is to take a very inexpensive string of metallic decorations as my garland, but I put it pretty deep into the tree. So this will give your tree some extra reflection as well. And you will see it if you're standing up close, but it just gives it a little extra something. It's kind of a modern touch. So I found these $3 each. I'm only using two strands and they're from Target. They were from Target Wonder Shop like two years ago. If they still have something like this, I'll link it. But I think also Ikea has them right now, even with lights on them. So you could kind of do double duty with something that they have. But mine were so inexpensive, you know, and it does have a nice effect. Like everything else that we're doing, take your time because you can't go back and fix these things. You can't go back and fix garland. You can fix ribbon, but it's hard. So I really took my time with this and tried to spread it out as much as I could. Now after this step, I do like to do the tree topper because you can get the ladder really close to the tree and get that thing on top. Because this tree is so incredibly natural with those delicate branches at the top. My tree topper wasn't standing up straight and I did get it to with a great technique, which I will show you. But we'll get to that. So after this, I would do the tree topper. So I would do the clear bulbs right at the base of the tree. I would do my delicate garland, if you have one, not necessary. And then I would get right there at the top of the ladder and do the tree topper now. Now some families like to do that where the youngest child is lifted on the shoulders and does it or something. If that's your tradition, obviously I would do that. But if you want to get up there and get it right, I would do it at this point right now. And I'm just trying to show you a little bit of the detail of what I did there. But let's get moving. Here we go. Next up, I want to show you, these are from Walmart, but you can get them at all kinds of tree decorating shops. And it's garland twists. So these will blend in with your tree and it helps you secure so many things to the tree. And it's going to help us secure our ribbon. I step away for one second and someone curled up with my measuring device and my ribbon. So I was planning on showing you this right here, but okay. Isn't she cute? That's Lady. And she's helping me demonstrate the ribbon here. So it's from Michaels. It's by the brand Celebrate It. This is faux linen, striped ribbon, and it was $7 on sale. And it's two and a half inches wide. So that's what I used. And then I used old gold ribbon underneath. This ribbon isn't double-sided. If it was double-sided, I could have just used it. But I did learn this in a decorating technique class for the holidays years ago. It is a designer ribbon trick and it is my favorite, but there are so many ways you could decorate with ribbon. But I'm demonstrating this and using my fun tool that I showed you. You make two loops and a tail. Just secure them together. And then don't cut the ribbon yet because you're going to attach this kind of to one side or the other. It's your choice at near the top. And then you will billow it. And I make two billows. I will end up cutting this tail off, but you can see the time that I spend on the ribbon. I spend more time fluffing the tree and working on the ribbon than anything else. And I think it's well worth it. The ribbon is what's going to tie everything together on your tree. You can have a multitude of different ornaments, but this will help you tie it together and some other things that I'll share in a bit. I'll do the same thing on the opposite side of the tree, about a foot down from where that one began. And I'll billow on that side as well. And then you can just place them here and there on the rest of the tree and work your way down. And you don't just go straight down vertically with your billowing after this. You're going to kind of cascade from one side to the other a tad so it doesn't look so uniform. Some things you'll want to be uniform and some things you'll want to be free-flowing with. And the ribbon is the free-flowing situation here. Getting the ones at the top right are essential, but I did take my time with all of them. I'm using three rolls of ribbon and it's 25 feet each. So the gold ribbon I just had, so it would be the same amount of length for that. But luckily I had some, which goes with a lot of my ornaments. You can see how there is movement in the billow this time. This one doesn't have two loops, this one just has the one. And this is much easier to do. If you wanted to do it this way from the very beginning, this is the easier way to do it. But I do like those two loops on, you know, a lot of them. So this one is more toward the middle and it will end up being shorter. You can get shorter as you go down the tree. And I made sure to use as much of the ribbon as I could. I do have ribbon left over and I'm going to use that to decorate some other things around the house. But you will definitely need more than two rolls, FYI. I'll give you two quick tips while we're finishing up this ribbon and you will see the finished product in a second. You can use bobby pins to play around with your bows and get those loops to stick together if you have them around the house. And then also you can cut those items that I showed you to secure the ribbon to the tree in half and you'll get more out of them. The next step typically is very large round ornaments that you can kind of stick deeper in the tree and sprays. I'm not doing it that way and that's for a reason and it will be revealed. I decided to unpack my ornaments so that you could see what I was working with. But normally, just so you know, I take them out of the package and put them right on the tree because I'm really excited. But I wanted to lay them out so you saw sort of the color palette because none of these are really the same theme. A lot of them are Lenox China but then some mimic that type of style. So when we were traveling, like let's say for example to Disney World, we would try to find ornaments that looked like they were Lenox that were Disney themed so they would blend in with this tree. Later we started also putting up a blown glass tree so then we stopped doing that and got blown glass ornaments when we were there. A quick tip for making ornaments that are all different colors and all different styles just to make them harmonize is to put the same hanger on all of the ornaments. Some ornaments have the type of hanger that just won't come off and it's built in. I mean that would probably make your ornament more sturdy. I bought a bunch of ribbon hangers years ago, so many packs at once so that I would always have them as I added to my collection and I would recommend that as well. Even if you have a modern tree, the ribbon hangers still work but if you have say a coastal or something that's a little more woodsy, you can use jute to do that. Getting everything out at once is actually the more practical way to do it too because then you can put a few ornaments in a for when you get up on the ladder and you're not excitedly just doing one at a time. Now I laid out my collection and we won't spend a lot of time on this but on the left is a 12 Days of Christmas ornament. They're all snowflakes and then they have the themes of the song on them. I have all Lennox ornaments here except for that mid row and then as you make your way over to the right on the top, those are my least favorite Lennox ornaments. So they're going to go toward the back and those tinies are so small that they can fit up at the top of the tree and then I have a White House ornament, a Downton Abbey, Cinderella's Carriage. I can't find my other Cinderella's Carriage ornament, it's so frustrating and I'll point out others along the way I think. Now I think we're getting ready to put ornaments up and after the ornament portion, we will be doing my fun new decorating trick for this year. Brand new, so you'll see it first. Another tip for harmonizing everything is to grab a collection of ornaments and space those throughout the tree so that it kind of brings the others that don't look alike together. So you have a unified look with the ribbon and then with those ornaments and also the hangers. I'll show two other ornament groups that I used for the tree at the end of the video. Now here is how you can get your tree topper to stand up straight if it isn't doing that. We'll once again use these tree fasteners and if it won't stand up on that top branch because that one might be delicate, you can tie one of these twisties around that top branch and your topper and squeeze it without breaking it to try to get it to stand up straight and it ended up working. I definitely found it frustrating how it kept tipping. I was playing with it too much. If I had just put it on and left it there, everything would have worked out better but I just have to play with things but it did work out. As you would with a valuable ornament, I try to do a double wrap on the fastener to make sure it's really holding so that as I do other things along the way, as they shake, they won't fall off. What's contained in these beautiful boxes, which are great for housing ornaments by the way, are eucalyptus stems and mini mum flowers and my innovation for the tree this year is to use the buttery soft eucalyptus stems that they have at Riddle Lake Home. They've been a partner of mine in the past. My friend Leanne that works there is from the UK. They own this as a family business and they have beautiful silk florals and I've sampled some for you and I showed you this bouquet in particular. It's the burnt orange bouquet. I just said orange the way my father does. I don't normally say it that way. I don't know what's happening but these eucalyptus stems are buttery soft and they're quite long so I wanted to try using these as sprays in my tree and I sampled with a few that I already had at the house and I spoke with Leanne and said, do you think these would work well on a holiday tree even though they're not the normal eucalyptus stems that people use that are glittery? I wanted a different texture and she agreed that this would be a really fun experiment so we're doing this together and what I wanted to use also were this these beige eucalyptus stems and they come with a bouquet of beige mini mums which they call cuckoo flowers at Riddle Lake Home. It's a Japanese name for mini chrysanthemums and I'm going to show you these combined in a vase because if you were to typically buy these you'd be buying them as a beautiful bouquet and you'll see that in a moment but I'm getting these eucalyptus stems ready to put into the tree. We're going to fill gaps with them and we're going to cause a bit of a spray at the top of the tree to surround that topper and what we're trying to do is incorporate the colors that are in the living room, the living area, and then also we're doing it to add that texture because I love the texture of these. So let's put these on the tree and I can't wait to see how this turns out. Each box contains two eucalyptus stems and the main event in those actually are the 10 stems of mini mums and they have a lot of mums on each stem and you can see how beautiful it looks in a bouquet. I think they're outstanding and the price for those is $29.99 on Amazon and I'll link it. I really like the way that this is turning out. It's bringing that color and texture and you'll see me continue to place these but I wanted to mention many people have trees that are rather slender even if you don't expect it to be and when that's the case putting sprays in or in this case really beautiful eucalyptus stems you can make them stick out of your tree further to kind of widen the look of your tree. I don't have to do that here that's why you're seeing me kind of curve them into the tree. I'm just looking for texture and color here but if you did need to make your tree look a little wider to help it look a little more festive then you could do that with these as well and not curve them in the way that I'm doing it and because I like the way this looks so much I'm adding in all of the sprays that you saw displayed out on the floor and I'm doing it in each of those three colors and then I have some really fun plans for those mums at the bottom of the tree. Before I do that I'm going to place my tree skirt. A lot of people would have done their tree collar or the tree skirt quite early on. My tree skirt is bright white and the latter definitely would have made it dirty so I was waiting as long as I could and after I get the tree skirt in I'm going to place the florals at the bottom of the tree with a creative idea and then there's one more step so I think a lot of you would have stopped at that point because my home is contemporary and I know a lot of you don't have contemporary homes but if you do I have one final trick to instantly make any tree look like it's more modern and we'll do that last. Before we do the modern twist I wanted to show you some of the traditional ornaments on the tree and let you know that sometimes I try to place them in ways where they create a little story and here's one. So I have a coffee pot, a teapot, and a cup so of course I'm putting them together. We also have a bride and groom ornament made in Germany and that was a gift for our wedding and you'll see that next. I also have a beautiful Lennox nativity set. In addition to that a lot of my Lennox ornaments are Florentine. I bought them all around the same grouping of years so I separated those so that that look could be spread throughout the tree and I'll just show you individual ornaments for a few moments and then we'll get to that finale of putting those final ornaments on the tree. If you're enjoying the look and the concept of my vintage Lennox ornaments all hope is not lost because there are modern day versions of many of these especially those with the religious aspect and then if you like the fact that I've dated ornaments that I do have links for the 2025 versions and there are several of them and they're very beautiful. I want them but I have a feeling it's not happening now after all of the things that I bought for this tree but I hope you've been enjoying this quick look at the ornaments and why don't we get to that modern flair idea and the DIY now. In the typical fashion of my channel I do finally have a dupe for you in this video and I am DIYing a version of the Pottery Barn Glittered Moravian Star ornament and as you can see theirs is about $35. The ones that I'm painting right now are from At Home. They're available this year. I think they're new this year and I decided if I painted them I could make them look quite a bit like the Pottery Barn but because I'm going for a matte texture to add to this tree I'm not adding glitter. There's so these were $1.99 as you may have seen on the video already and I'm using a paint color that I've used in paintings that are around this same area of the tree so it will blend perfectly and it is one of my favorite colors to use lately. I'll link that. I don't know if I can link it for you to purchase it but I think I can at least put the name there in case you want to look for it. This is the final outcome of these matte stars. I'm going to attempt to hang this in this hole and it may droop down further. If it does I'll double tie. It really didn't so I'm going to slide that part under the ribbon. I might try to pull Mickey out a tad. This is set here. Now I've gotten into the whole thing but there you go guy but I like the way that this is bringing out the matte just as the eucalyptus, the ribbon, and the star. I wonder if you agree. Now you'll see in the final product. So let me choose spaces, get these on the tree, and then one more piece of advice and perhaps I should have said this in the beginning. I may insert it so now you might be hearing it for the second time but when you are decorating, do you see how it was much easier for me to see this empty spot without the lights on? When you have the lights on, you can't really see what's there as well as you can with the lights off. So when you're placing ornaments, if your family's willing, if you don't mind it being a little less magical during that moment, hang the ornaments without the lights on. I wanted to show you my instant trick for making a tree look modern and you know I would say this year and for several years to come this would be the way to do it but it might change in the future but I would say with a starburst ornament these are very mid-century modern. They don't necessarily have to be, you could think of them as winter wonderland and maybe even nordic. It's hard to say about those things but it's definitely mid-century modern so futuristic and I found this this year at the Home Store. It's $3.99 each. I've bought a few of them because I'm thinking that this can also be a gem to put with holiday vignettes so you could have your normal decor pieces and then include this next to it and suddenly it's Christmas. One of the things I also thought was important with this type is it can stand apart from the tree and it's not jarring because it looks like it's meant to be a sparkle. The twinkling lights now so flashing light warning. I wanted to thank Costway for this beautiful tree. I think it's a fantastic option for anyone who wants a very realistic tree that you like warm lights, you like one that has a full body, which is a weird way to say it, sorry, and I think it looks so real and so much like a nordic spruce and those upturned branches and the variation on the branches are fabulous. It's $2.69 like I said earlier and you can get 10% off with my code if you want to take a peek at the link in the description box. Also thank you so much to Leanne from Riddle Lake Home. She provided these beautiful eucalyptus stems for this video and she just has fantastically gorgeous flowers and it is at this point that I'll show you a vase that she has for offer. You've seen it in my videos before. It's back in stock. I'm sure you'd be glad about that. A lot of people missed out and were asking about it and then all of these bundles of flowers and these beautiful colors, the beige, I've had the white, the fall colors, they're called I think burnt orange on the website, and then she actually has bouquets for the Thanksgiving holiday as well as the Christmas holiday with a little red and green in that one. And as for you my friend who is still watching right to the end of this video, I wanted to say thank you so much for doing that. Thank you for being here. I hope you'll come back once again. But also as I was decorating this tree I did feel your presence. I felt like I love that I'll be chatting with people in the comments about holiday decorating and I really did feel like I had company while I did this because typically I am all alone decorating or Mr. Happiest is playing music for me in the background and hanging out, but I'm usually just decorating on my own and it felt like you were helping. So I wanted to thank you for that. It made it more fun for sure. Well guys, if you liked any of these items that I showed in the video I mentioned earlier, I'm definitely going to link everything that I can and I'm excited about next week's video. I'll be back with you next Saturday at 11 a.m. Eastern Time and I've found some really fun things for that video, so definitely come back. Well until then, thanks for watching.