Christmas Tree Crafts

As I was decorating our fireplace mantel, I was struggling to find something large to put up on one side. I was thinking about doing these wire trees, but was afraid they wouldn't feel substantial enough for our oversized fireplace. My friend Amy posted a picture of her fireplace and I caught a glimpse of her cute silver trees. I remembered seeing a how to tutorial on a blog and knew they'd be perfect for my mantel! I'm going to call it Amyspiration.

Before I get into the silver trees, though, I must show you Amy's mantel. I'm in love with it! Check out the beautiful wood artwork! Swoon, right?! She said her hubby did the wood part and she did the painting. She is super humble and tried not to take credit for it since she first saw the idea on Pinterest here, but just DOING something off Pinterest is amazing to me! I have a bazillion things pinned and have only done a couple. This girl is great at finding inspiration online, making it work for her home, then actually getting it done! She did such a great job! 

Here are her trees that she made using this tutorial she found linked on Pinterest. Aren't they beautiful?! One is made from tinsel ribbon, one is made of pinecones, and one is made from beads that she cut off of floral picks. I love her trees!!! The girl's got style!

Now that you've seen some of her Christmas decor, raise your hand if you think she should start a blog. What? Unanimous hand raising going on? That seals the deal, Amy. The people have spoken. Please start a decorating blog! :) 

Armed with my Amyspiration, I headed to the craft store to pick up supplies for my trees! I followed the same tutorial on Shauna Mailloux's blog to create my trees. Shauna has great, detailed instructions and photos on her site, so check it out. It really was easy peasy! 

For the first tree, I just wrapped tinsel ribbon around my paper cone, hot gluing it down. I topped it with a silver ball. 

The second tree I made, I used a piece of sparkly silver paper to make the cone, then glued on glitter craft balls. 

For the tallest tree, I used a piece of poster board I had on hand to make the cone. I sprayed painted it silver then used silver glitter paper to cover the cone. I had originally planned to make a pine cone tree like Amy's, but my pine cones were too old and brittle and I kept finding bugs in my pine cones (shutter). Sad. But I like the way the paper one turned out! 

I'm loving how they turned out! Thanks for the inspiration and the motivation, Amy! And, thanks for letting me share your awesomeness! 

I had some white glitter paper that I didn't end up using, so whipped up a quick paper leaf wreath for the fridge door. I just cut out paper leaves, rolled them around a marker to give them some dimension, and hot glued them together in a circle. I hung it with a ribbon and taped the end of the ribbon to the inside of the fridge door. Easy! 

Jeremy's working on a special project for the fireplace right now. When he finishes, I'll share the whole fireplace with you! 

Linking up to Centsational Girl's Christmas Crafts Link Party, Two Twenty One, Keep Up with the Johnson's Pintertest Kitchen, and Hi Sugarplum!