240/365 - O Christmas Tree...

Well, we finally got our Christmas tree up this weekend. I would have put it up a little sooner but things have been a little chaotic at our house. Stress levels are high for grad students and motivation is lacking for first grade teachers. But we managed to get it done!

About a year ago I went to the D.I. (thrift store for anyone who doesn't know) to buy books for my classroom. While I was there I saw a tote filled with tons and tons of silver glittery garland. It looks a lot like seaweed but I thought it was fun and thought we might be able to use it for a Christmas tree.

It also had a lot of clear bead/bauble garland. Again, pretty cool. The best part was everything had its price tags on (hundreds of dollars with of stuff) and the entire tote of silver and bauble garland cost me $10.00. Not too shabby for brand new stuff.

We decided to do a new tree this year and not use any of our previous tree decorations. We started by cramming the tree full of my D.I. find with PLENTY of leftovers. We also added burgundy ribbon into the tree.

Ken was pretty helpful with the ribbon.

Tank was not helpful at all. This was as much as he participated.

A few final touches...

Voila!

We still need a "tree skirt" that matches. I'm going to go to a fabric store tomorrow and buy some burgundy iridescent organza fabric to bunch around the bottom.

We opted to not use many ornaments. We added our 2011 ornament that Ken's mom sent to us this weekend. Thanks Karl & Shari - we LOVE it!

 We put on our 2010 ornament from them too!

We added some metallic snowflakes we scored an amazing deal on,

and white glittery ones.

That's all the ornaments. Here's a close up of the silver "seaweed" and bauble garland. It's different but we like it.

Not too bad for the bulk of the decorations coming from a thrift store and everything else on clearance.

Now that the tree is up, I need to get some presents wrapped and put under it!