Aside from the hot pink tinsel tree that Renee bought for us a few years ago that we covered in snails and giraffes, I haven't had much of a "Christmas" tree in years.
Matao wants a tree this year. At first I was hesitant, then excited, and then just conflicted. I love the idea of having this big wonderful smelling tree in our apartment- but I hate the fact that we have to kill one to do so. Plus, the cleanup is awful, and I'm pretty sure we'd have a wild cat beast climbing up it and knocking it over. Probably only onto my things and not Matao's, in typical Luna fashion.
Me, being me- I'll show you what we ended up doing once it gets here (yes, I ordered something). But aside from that I wanted to suggest a few good alternatives to a real "live" (aka soon to be dead) tree. Especially if you live in an apartment, or somewhere with limited space.
- This is my absolute favorite thing. I can't get over how cute it is! It would be darling with a tiny strand of white lights, and some felt berries.
- Etsy is an absolute mecca of vinyl wall decals these days, but if you can manage to weed your way through some of the cheesy crap, there are a lot of really great finds. I love the idea of a giant tree taking up half of your wall. Some of my favorites: here, here, here, here, and here. Phew.
- I love this, and I think they would also be incredibly easy to make, if you had the right materials. She has a few in other colors and patterns as well, and you really can't beat the price at $12.
- This seller has an entire shop full of wonderful tree alternatives. I really love the idea of a wreath, that can be used year after year (also: this, this, this, or this). Or a teenie tiny pinecone fruit and spice tree that would work perfectly on a shelf or tabletop. If you aren't hung up on having a tree tree there are a lot of other directions to go in.
Moving on to lights- I don't have a lot of crazy or unique ideas, but I do have one long standing favorite:
Renee Marie & Renai Marie
Origami balls! These are SO easy (and fun) to make, and if you use neutral colored paper you can leave them up year round. I've seen these exact same lights sold on Etsy and a local art gallery for $35+, which is insane considering that you can get a strand of white lights for $2 and origami paper for about the same. All you do is fold your paper following these instructions, and then place each ball (where the hole is) over a light. Easy peasy and they're so beautiful once up. If you live in Seattle, Uwajimaya is probably the best place to pick up origami paper (as well as heaps of udon mmm).
My next post, which I was intending to focus entirely on gifting books- is quickly evolving into something else (surprise!), as I realized that I have far too many favorite sellers on Etsy to cut my list short. Too bad!
1 comment:
those are all cute, but none of them would satisfy my christmas tree lust in the slightest. my family has had a fake tree for probably the last 10 years, if not longer--mostly because one year our cat tried eating the pine needles off our real tree and had a bit of an emergency. i know some people don't like fake trees because they don't smell as good--which is totally true. but the pros can outweigh the cons in lots of ways. you buy one good fake tree, you're set for life! never have to worry about it again. no clean-up. no need to worry about luna puncturing a lung on a pine needle. no bugs! i say just get a nice fake tree that you'll want to continue using in the future.
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