Decorate My 12ft Christmas Tree With Me | 12ft Balsam Hill Aspen Estate Fir

Hello everyone and welcome to Lifestyle with Melanie Graves where I share stylish and creative ideas to help you do what makes you happy in your home. All right so first things first I'm going to share a little bit about the design concept of this year's tree. We affectionately call this tree Big Bertha because she's got a lot of girth. It was fun to style her this year. I did have a couple of challenges finding the right ribbon. If you're new here I will definitely say that I am a bit of a ribbon snob and a lot of my design concepts for the tree really center around what the ribbon looks like. And so this year I really didn't have a full idea of what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to challenge myself by changing things up a little bit and I did that by incorporating green. Normally I don't decorate with a lot of green for the holiday season. It's just not well it's not my favorite color but also the tree has so much green it's green and so I've never really pulled more greens into it. So that was something that I challenged myself to do this year. And of course we have to talk about this big Ralph Lauren trend that doesn't seem to want to escape us. It's like everywhere we turn it's the Ralph Lauren Christmas tree trend. And even on the news the other day they were talking about it which I find kind of funny but I thought a little bit about what makes the Ralph Lauren brand stand out. So what do you think about when you think Ralph Lauren? For me it's timeless, it's classic, it's nostalgic. Some would probably even say aspirational but it's definitely sophisticated. And so I said okay I can try to incorporate all those elements into my tree without going crazy buying all the new stuff. Again the ribbon is new but the only other new element on the tree are these gorgeous bells that I showed you guys in the first video of my 2025 series. Now originally these bells were intended for the mantle but my mantle design just didn't work. The garland that I also showed you in that first video I originally was going to try to use on my mantle but this mantle is extra large. It's really big and that garland is short and it just didn't work on a mantle like this. So I went back to my old school garland. You guys have seen me use this garland for years and that's my Grandin Road Cascading Garland and I added some sparkly elements in this year that I'll try to capture on camera for you. But that's pretty much the concept okay so I've talked enough so now let's jump into the tour. And of course no tour would be complete without a little behind the scenes setup. So I am setting up our tree here. It's a family affair this year. If you're new here I have been a long time brand ambassador and partner with Balsam Hill. This video is not sponsored but I am a brand ambassador of Balsam Hill. I've been working with them for many years now and the tree that I'm sharing this year is the 12 foot Aspen Estate Fir. The branch details are this is their most realistic category of trees 7500 plus tip count and 3320 lights. This year I am adding in twinkling lights. I saw all of the trending trees last year with the twinkling lights and I thought they were so beautiful but I really am still enjoying this tree so I wasn't ready for a new tree so I decided to add in twinkling lights. Let me show you what I used. All right fam it's been a couple of days I know with camera magic it doesn't seem that way but so today I'm going to I've been shaping the tree and I think I have it pretty much where I want it and I'm going to add lights to the top. Now if it looks like the bottom has a lot more lights it's because it does. So I'm adding these guys kind of hard to see but there's a opening here right and what I love about this product is that it the lights cascade so it gives me a lot more control over where they go. So that's really exciting I'm going to plug it in I'm going to go to the top and get this party started. Don't worry I'm very very careful up here. So this is just going to slide over the top of the tree and actually what I'm going to do is kind of group these first branches together in hopes that I can get it over the top a little bit more easily nope that's fine. So look these are just going to cascade basically down there's eight of them so I can put them down every side of the tree I am going to group more towards the front because I don't need a lot of light back in this back corner because nobody's going to see that. But up here is really where I want the party to be and I think this is just going to bring some like new life to this tree I'm really excited about these and then I think there are I want to say six different lighting programs you can see on the bottom I've got twinkling because that was the point of getting these. So right now I'm just kind of placing them where I want them to fall so I can I can shape them or you know stick them into the tree and I will I will secure this up here with just some zip ties all right. One kit is the lights are long enough to cover I believe eight foot tree so I had to use two for my tree because it's 12 feet tall. Okay so I'm going to show you the new picks that I'm adding this year to play with green I walked into HomeGoods and I saw these and I was like you know this would bring some gorgeous interest to the tree they almost look like olives but I don't know I like the glitter I like a sparkly tree so I'm adding these. All right there's two more really nice picks I'm adding these I showed you in the swag they've got gold bells on them they've got gold bells on them and this really gorgeous sparkly eucalyptus. So just adding lots of gorgeous interest to the tree and they've got these pretty little gold sparkly pine cones just nice little pops of green that are going to be great and then finally this one stood out to me alone it didn't look that pretty but in the tree and look there's just there's so many different variations of green in this piece you've got like the green fern you've got little eggs and a nest in there how pretty is that a little bit of a frosted pine but then this sparkly I don't even know what this is but it kind of curls up on the end let me see if I can turn the camera so you can see that see how it curls up on the end I think that's so cool so this is another way to play with greens a little eucalyptus in there with a little sparkle these are the types of things that make me so excited when I am styling my tree so okay all right little baby birds look at that so pretty yes let's do it also new on the tree this year are these gorgeous bells that I shared in my holiday preview video with you I originally purchased these thinking that they were going to go on the mantle but when I was styling the tree I held them up and they were just perfect there and then of course the ribbon pick you guys I struggled so hard with the ribbon this year in fact it's what took me so long to style the tree I sent about five or even six ribbons back after they arrived they just weren't right and I found this one I found it I believe on Wayfair I will double check and link it for you in the description box but I loved the colors the tartan plaid really played into that trend that we were talking about earlier but it's still on my own and then this was double-sided with this gorgeous shimmery gold on the back so this was definitely a yes and then I paired it with a gorgeous green velvet ribbon that I found believe it or not at home goods and here's a look at what it kind of looks like paired together I will typically use a lot more ribbon than I used in the tree this year I'll tell you I was nervous with the the darker greens because quite frankly it's hard to shoot and film them and I didn't want it to look like there were a bunch of dark spots in the tree so I used a pretty good amount and I'll step back here so you can kind of see how everything blended together I also incorporated some red jingle bells some gold pine cones and some giant sparkly pine cones and blue mercury glass that I've had forever and rarely use now for the garland as I mentioned earlier I am using my Grandin Road cascading garland I bunched together two sets of the garland and then I found this sparkly I think it's a eucalyptus garland I'm not sure what the plant actually is but it looks like a baby eucalyptus but I thought it pulled some of the eucalyptus from the main tree and very well were inspired in some way if you were please give this video a thumbs up it really helps the channel and consider subscribing and for those of you who have been watching year after year video after video and you aren't subscribed why not it's free give me that subscription you know you like coming here and I love to have you here so let's do it fam I will see you in the next video I've got a lot of fun things planned we are going to decorate the kitchen together of course I've got my coffee station video there are lots of fun things that we'll be doing and I'm going to be sharing more entertaining videos this year as well so thank you as always for your time and until next time love and peace