With A Little Help From A Bean

An Ellie Bean, of course. ;-)

The place we normally cut our trees from has experienced drought for the last few years, so pickings are slim. And I'm waiting for larger trees to drop in price before I go after the one I have in mind for a new, big artificial tree. Using all my crazy Fesitval skills, I put together a new "table top" size tree for us.

If you can get a well done lit tree on clearance, do it. But I liked the look of this little tree that was unlit. One 100-light strand of twinkle lights was more than enough for it, but bigger trees can get pricey to light on your own.

Lay our everything you've collected for the project so you can see what you're working with. You might decide to nix some items and you may have forgotten what you purchased already.

Always make your own floral units. Way cheaper, more fun, and you can get more for your money when they're on sale. And before you say you can't do that, yes you can. You may need to practice and play for a bit, but I have faith in your creative abilities. Larger bushes of flowers or greenery can be cut apart to add a bit more oomph to a unit.

In this case, I had the gold magnolia leave and berries picked out, but decided to and sprigs from a frosted greenery bunch. Gave it more of a winter feel as opposed to fall.

Don't be afraid to think outside the box. The larger candy cane was actually a novelty pen that I found at the pharmacy 3 for $1. The smaller ones I aid a lot more for at Michaels. Also leave yourself some stem lengths so you have something to anchor the units to the tree branches.

Do a dry run for your topper to see what you like and don't like. Take some time to play around and have fun!

If you fall in love with a ribbon that isn't wired, make sure you pair it with a wired ribbon to make your like easier during bow-making. And make sure you have a good length of wire when securing the bow so you have leverage when placing it on the tree.

Always work with a single element at a time so you can get even placement. Work from the inside of the tree outward, because it's easier to layer that way. I preferred to add my feature ornaments last on this tree, because they're fabric and needed to be towards the ends of the limbs. I found the tutorial for the fabric ornaments here, and made them in several sizes. All of them came from 2 fat quarters of fabric.

Enjoy!