Riggio’s House of Trees 2012

Every year I look forward to putting up my 7 trees!  I’ve blogged about them for the last 2 years, so you can see those blogs 2010 here and 2011 here.  They’ll give a better overall perspecitve than this blog post.  I decided you didn’t need to see them again this year unless there was a little different spin on it.  I’m not an expert, but I do have opinions :).

5 Ways to have a beautiful Christmas tree:

1) Location and size

Think outside the box, it doesn’t always have to be in front of a window. I do have a couple that are, but it’s because that’s where they worked best. Just don’t let that limit you. When I had 6 and wanted to add another no one could see where I would fit it. I saw the perfect spot… right in the corner of the kitchen nook. It’s not a big spot, but I didn’t need a big spot. Who says the tree has to be huge?  In fact, sometimes small is just right!  You don’t want it to overpower the room!

Our kitchen nook had a small corner available, so I found this tree at Home Depot.  It has it’s own stand, is pre-lit and the perfect size!  Also, note the colors – not the traditional green and red.  Instead its pink and blue :).

The sister-in-law got the pot for me and the BBQ to the right of it.  I love getting new ornaments.  Since this tree is located in the kitchen, it only makes sense that all the ornaments are kitchen related, fun huh? 🙂

2) Theme or color scheme

I had a hard time choosing just one style.  I wanted more.  So, each tree has a theme to some extent. It could be color specific or subject specific, but it needs to be something to give a cohesive look.  My bedroom tree is color specific with creams and coppers.  My basement tree is subject specific, decorated in musical instruments.  The red keyboard is a new one for this year.  I found it at Rankos, a small old-time drug store down the street.

3) Personalize it

Each of my trees have a variety of meaningful ornaments. Some represent us in a big way, like the diningroom tree which has ornaments from all the places we have visited as a family. Other trees have ornaments that the kids have made, or ones that represent things we like.  I think it’s so important to have that personalized touch.  I know, for me, that’s why I love each one so much and look forward to putting them up.

This year I added an ornament that represents my wonderful mother-in-law (she used to collect Koala’s) and one that represents a recent trip we took to my sister-in-law’s new house in Chelan.  She has a little owl that sits above her back door.  His name is Owliotte.  The Koala’s are from World Market and the owl was a gift from my sister-in-law.

I also added this little guy.  He looks just like the little birds that visit my yard often (and that my cat had in it’s mouth the other day, very sad).

4) Add Bling, lots of bling

I realized years ago that what I really loved about the beautiful trees I saw at the stores was the bling that was added to them. We think of the traditional ornaments to decorate a tree, but there’s just so much more and honestly, I think a tree needs more! I added some bling to each of my kid’s trees this year.  They were the only 2 that didn’t have any (well, the basement one too, which still needs a little more).

I added 3 blings to Nick’s tree.  The green sprays, the green leaves and the red berries.  It looks so much better now!  I got all 3 at Artco.Um, yes that’s dust you see on the red ball.  Nick decided to leave his tree up all year, since he loves it so much. He also got a new penguin ornament (well, several actually).  This one’s from Pier 1.  I wanted to get him a little white truck to represent his first vehicle, but I couldn’t find one.

Amanda’s tree also got an update, with a new star from Pier 1, silver leaves and white cascading flowers. Amanda also got a whole new bedroom this year to celebrate her entrance into high school.  No more bunk beds.  Instead I took my old white iron bed frame from when I was a kid, painted it black and got new bedding from Ikea, along with an Audrey Hepburn print, some repurposed and new furniture and shelving, a chandelier and she has a whole new look.  I love it and more importantly, she loves it!

I got the white flowers from Artco and the silver leaves from Watermark, a local gift shop, the same place I got the ballerina on the right.

I also try to find unique ornaments, like this one I found at our local Thriftway store.  

5) Make it easy

This is the most common question I get. “It takes me forever to decorate one, how do you do 7?”

I can tell you that I do them all by myself. All are artificial except one. 2 are pretty old and I put every branch on (diningroom and master bedroom), but I’ve made it as easy as possible until I eventually replace those two. Some tips:

• Store the tree trimmings nearby, like in a drawer in the room the tree is in. That way you don’t have to haul the stuff out of storage and into the room every year. I just pull out a drawer.



• Store artificial trees under a bed for the bedroom ones.
• There are some artificial trees that are pre-lit and in a base.  Those leave in tact and just put a garbage bag over the top and store int he basement or garage as is.

This one is stored under our bed in a long flat box.

I graduated from University of Puget Sound, so this year I decided to get an ornament that represents that.  I found it in the UPS bookstore and it felt a little strange being on campus after all these years. When I attended school there, the colors were gold and green.  Now they have changed them to burgundy and silver.

This tree has the most bling of all.  There are 5 different sprays that come out of it. Some are sparkly and others just silk plants.  

Oh, one last thing… don’t stop – every year I add something. It might not be big, but it’s something. This didn’t happen over night!

Last but not least, the “real” tree.  This one troubled me this year.  Does anyone else think as much about this kind of stuff as me?  Am I crazy?

I have used the framed pictures as the focal point of this tree in the past, but this year they didn’t seem to be standing out.  We needed some big ornaments to help balance them.  This is the most eclectic of the trees.

I added pine cone ornaments and white lights, instead of just the usual red ones.  Home Depot has these great sets from Martha Stuart that has everything you need to decorate a tree.  What a great idea.  I really wanted these pine cones and the only way to get them was to buy the entire set, so I did, knowing I could use some of the other ornaments on other trees.

I added big ornamental ornaments, since other than the picture frames, the ornaments were small.

I still included the personal ones on, like this one we got as a wedding gift our first year.

And these made by my kids.

I do like it better, but it’s still not there yet.  Maybe woodland type creatures next year? We’ll see :).

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed seeing our trees again and maybe even got a little inspiration for your own tree.