Christmas tree!

1st let me say it has been a really long time since I have written a blog! But as I was telling my Christmas tree story, several people told me I should Blog it. :)

Here is my Christmas tree this year:

I saw the idea on Pinterest and thought it would be really cute and easy to do! My husband Patrick is working out of town and wasn't able to make it home before Christmas to get all of my Christmas decor down from the attic and so I wasn't going to do a tree at all but my 5 year old REALLY wanted one mom!

So off I go to Hobby Lobby, Target, and Walgreens, and there are no white trees to be found but I finally find one at Walmart and for only $39 prelit with white lights! Yay! That night I open the box and find that the tree has multicolored lights and this was the night it had been snowing all day and I really didn't want to get back out in the weather so I waited until the next morning to return to Wal-mart. I went to 3 of the 4 Wal-marts and ALL were completely out of white trees... lit or otherwise so now I know I am keeping this tree.. But that's ok because I have a plan! I am going to by some strands of white lights and just replace the bulbs. (side note: I'm not sure if you have ever looked at how the lights are on a pre lit tree, but they are definitely ON there.)

I make it home later that day and start changing lights out and this plan is NOT working.. It completely kills the entire strand when I put the lights in so that's now out also.. Well that's ok. I will just take these 400 lights off and put the new white lights on.. But I am going to try to save these lights because we can use them for something else... hahaha WRONG! After I spent an hour on just the bottom level of meticulously taking off the twisty ties and cutting the zip ties off, I'm pretty frustrated and get the scissors out. I am no longer interested in saving these lights. I just want them off! 3 hours later and all of the lights removed, and a new snow storm in my living room floor, I am ready to set up the tree!

I get back into the box, and CANNOT find the legs. So back to the store I go. I am just going to get another tree stand. I go to CVS, Dollar General, and Wal-mart (again)... there are NONE! I am done for the day. :) So I think about what I am going to do and decide I am just going to go back to Wal-mart, get the same tree but the green one, steal the legs out of the dang box and return the tree... and that's what I did! And I don't feel one drop bad about it because at this point, I have already spent $60 more on lights for a $39 pre-lit tree! This is now day 3. Now, I have to buy a skirt for the bottom of the tree bc the green legs do not match the white tree. So by the end of day 3 I have the tree finally up, and lit, and skirt on the bottom.. Yay! I am so happy! I even take a picture of it with the hat and scarf and balls. Love it!

Day 4 I am finally going to be able to make the Paper Mache head! Although I have never done this, I find directions online and think I can get it done.. Until it says wait 24 hours between each layer, minimum of 3 layers! Well crud! I only have 2 more days until the cookie exchange! Ack! so I do the 1st layer that night and try to blow dry it but that isn't really working well... back to google to figure something else out! Oh I can bake it! (I have a balloon as a base).. so I turn the oven on 1st, let it get to 350 degrees and then turn it off.. open the door, put in my balloon, leave the door cracked and it works! It dries half of it, so I take it out, warm oven back up, turn oven back off, and balloon goes back in. This really works! I would just say if you are going to do it, the 2nd time you put it back on in the same layer, you need to watch it because the balloon starts to expand and it will crack open your mache.

So end of night 4 I have 2 layers on and last layer goes on day 5.. I let it go ahead and sit and dry after baking it that whole day just to make sure it was good and hard... I painted it day 6 in the morning. (day of cookie party)

Other side note for mache-ing.. make your last layer computer paper if you are going to paint it.. It really helps in not having to use so much paint to get it white from using the newspaper and it works really well.. I just let it sit in the flour/water paste a little bit longer than the newspaper.

Got the black balls online and the lit tree branch arms from Holland Gardens. Hat came from Wal-mart and had an ugly band around it, so I removed that and taped on the red ribbon to match the scarf. :) If you wanted to make your black balls, you could just get round styrofoam and paint them and add beads if you want..

I let the kids (ages 5 and 3) do a paper mache head also and paint it, and have a smaller prelit white tree snowman in Sydney's room.. Here is her snowman: ( I painted this one, Sydney did some of the paper mache for it.. The one they painted was just for fun and did not make it on a tree)

I really like how they turned out and next year will be much easier to put up! Merry Christmas everyone!