Blogmas Day 10 - Alternative Christmas Trees

If like me, you don’t really have room for a “real” Christmas tree, then there are a load of options for you to still have some semblance of tree in your house. Pinterest has a wealth of ideas when it comes to alternative Christmas trees, and you just have to pick the option that suits your time, DIY skills and space. 

You could build a ladder-like structure from branches, or just straight up use an old ladder to hang ornaments on and put the gifts under. This will still take up some space, but it won’t seem as bulky, and it won’t shed needles all over your floor. 

You can make a Christmas tree on your wall, either using washi tape or some sort of fabric. Again it depends on the look you are going for and your DIY skills. You can outline the tree in washi tape or string and then decorate it by taping ornaments on it. Flat ones will probably work the best. You can also tape some fairy lights  to the “tree” or even use those for the outline. You can also hang strings with clothespins on the “tree” and display your Christmas cards here. If you pick an out of the way corner, you can also put your gifts under the “tree”. 

If you have mad DIY skills you can build a tree out of old wooden boards and decorate it in various ways. For example you can wrap fairy lights around the boards, or you can hang ornaments on it with such pins. You can also glue clothes pins on it and use these either for ornaments or as an advent calendar. A tree like this can go up against a wall and won’t take up too much space either. As before, if you pick an out of the way spot you can put your gifts beneath it, too. 

I decided to go for the washi tape approach, as my DIY skills are only so-so. I decided to use blue tape and ribbon to go with my coppery fairy lights. Now, my eye for color matching is not the best, so this might look awful once it’s up. But the good thing about that is, it’s easy to take down again, and washi tape is inexpensive, so you can just try a different color if your first pick doesn’t suit your fancy! Traditionally one would probably pick some shade of green, but it’s nice to try something new once in a while. Even around Christmas! 

DIY WASHI CHRISTMAS TREE

So get your washi tape of choice and start taping. My first attempt came out pretty chunky-looking, so just keep trying until you get something you are happy with. 

Supplies; washi tape, ribbon, fairy lights

The tree. Please ignore the light flare!

Then tape up your fairy lights. Get LED lights as they won’t burn the surface they are on. Tape these up too. I used the was tape again and taped it to the outline of the tree. If you need support points inside the outline of the tree just use clear tape.

Fairy lights and ribbon

Then tape up your ornaments; either tape up some sort of string to hang them from or use clear tape to tape them directly “onto” the tree. Use as many or as few as you like. You can go for a color-coordinated look or mix and match with whatever you feel like. I always feel like the messy look with a bunch of homemade stuff mixed in with the store-bought makes for a nice cozy look. My tree is pretty small, so I won't overload it with ornaments, bit if you feel like it then go crazy and hang everything you can find on that tree!