Christmas has landed! I decorated my tree on Sunday so I thought I’d share some snaps of it with you today…
I got my locally-grown Christmas tree from Blackthorpe Barn (isn’t it the perfect shape?!) and my husband fashioned a stand for it using offcuts of wood. We spray painted a bucket with gold Rust-Oleum paint to make it look a little more glitzy for Christmas, so that we can keep the tree watered. A Nordmann Fir should easily last until Christmas if it’s away from direct heat and you top up the water regularly. Did you know a Christmas tree can drink half a pint of water each day??
Last week, we went for a rummage in the local charity shops and found two boxes of glass baubles to add to our collection. So, for the first time in a long time, our tree has a colour scheme! It’s an accidental colour scheme though, because we just piled the baubles on and when I stepped back to look at the finished tree, I was surprised to see an overall rose gold, red and white theme.
We usually have all the colours of the rainbow on the tree, but after last Christmas we cleared out a few baubles. Our usual the yellow and green baubles are currently hanging in my kitchen because we photographed them as a mid-century Christmas “chandelier” for Reclaim magazine and we’ve left them there ever since.
The decorations that made it onto the tree are mostly the new rose gold baubles from the charity shop, my usual collection of red glass baubles and all of my snowy white animal decorations from my toy upcycling project for Reclaim magazine. I added my favourite caravan bauble from Paperchase that I got last year.
I’ve got a couple of new glass decorations from the British Library shop this year. The first was a gift for my husband so I gave it to him as we decorated the tree at the weekend. He’s a photographer so, when I saw this Polaroid camera bauble on the website, I really wanted to get it for him.
The second new addition from the British Library is this arcade machine bauble. When it arrived I was actually surprised by how big it is! It’s a lot more glittery than I imagined and has a little Santa Pac Man on the side. So festive, very retro and it reminds me of playing in the arcade on seaside family holidays when I was a child.
If you’ve already read my blog post about choosing a sustainable, local Christmas tree, you’ll know that I popped into the Blackthorpe Barn shop while I was there. I got these tiny wooden snowflakes and couldn’t resist adding them to my tree to add an extra pop of snowy white to the tree.
Oh and I nearly forgot the best decorations I bought this year! I commissioned my friend, ceramic artist Hannah Berridge, to make these cat decorations for me and – you’ve guessed it – she painted them just like my cats Cookie and Muffin! I send Hannah some photos of my cats and a rough drawing to give her an idea of their markings and she turned this into the Christmas decorations of my dreams.
Cookie’s wide-eyes captures her usual facial expression perfectly and Muffin’s distinctive smudgey nose is clear to see. I love the way that Hannah paints her ceramics in layers and I was SO delighted when I caught my first glimpse of my cat decorations at the Fram Makers Market. She can personalise any of her festive decorations, cups, crockery and so be sure to check out her website to find a unique gift.
When I went to the Thursford Christmas Spectacular last month, I got one of their baubles so that I could remember the occasion so I’ve popped it onto the tree along with all of my other new baubles and secondhand finds.
What do you think of my “accidental theme”? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a rose gold and red tree before! When I first looked at it, I was like ‘hmmmm’, but now I like how different it looks. I’ve had the same decorations on my tree for years so it’s lovely to try something a little different with my charity-shop finds and new additions, while still using all the old decorations I love.
What does your Christmas tree look like this year? Do you choose a colour scheme and stick to it? Let me know in the comments below 🙂
Some items in this blog post have been gifted to me and the pink links indicate a gifted product, affiliate link or information source. All thoughts and opinions in this post are based on my own experience and I am not responsible for your experience 🙂
