Evolution of a Christmas Tree, Making Your Tree Glow!

How was your weekend? Are you all ready for Christmas??

We finished decorating around here and kinda just hung out. My little sister had a birthday party at an indoor pool (the kids loved it!) on Friday night, I worked and Doug fixed our car (new radiator – blah) Saturday afternoon, and Doug’s parents and family came over on Sunday. Each night though, we took it easy and watched movies together. It was nice. 🙂

I’m totally not ready for Christmas, I was hoping to have my shopping done by the 1st of Dec – HA! Yeah right, didn’t happen. But in my defense, we have been busy… I’m headed out today to hopefully try and finish that up. Did you finish?

Thanks to pinterest, I learned from the mistakes I’ve made in the past and actually taken GOOD pictures of our tree this year!

Take a look at these two tutorials that really helped me:

Taking Glowing Pictures of the Tree via Unskinny Boppy

this one also focuses on using your point and shoot in manual mode and making it work for you:

Taking Pictures of Your Christmas Tree via August Tea Photography

And I thought it’d be fun to look at the evolution of our tree over the last four years!

The first three years we used a pre-lit tree. This year we decided to go with a real tree and I love it. 🙂 All four years, you can see how the big honkin’ speaker found its way into the picture… LOL.

• 2008: did not know how to take a picture to save my life, hand-me-down ornaments from my mom, grandma, and mother-in-law. I fell in love with that garland from Michaels and after finding it for 75% off, I called every store within a 30 mile radius, drove around, and ended up with 8 strands! I know Doug probably thought I was crazy (you know, pregnant and only 6 months married), but I am SO GLAD I did, and even kinda wish I drove around and found more! 😉
• 2009: getting better taking pics, but didn’t realize that you should take the clutter out of pictures before taking them. Silver garland, gold beads, hand-me-down ornaments, new tree skirt and stockings! They were a 60% off Black Friday deal at Kohl’s. I went back after Christmas and got two more stockings (had four – was pregnant with Ben), and I’m glad I did because this year we’re using 5 of them!  This was shortly after I started blogging. 🙂

• 2010: frustrated by pictures on all the awesome blogs out there and edited my pictures WAAAAAY too heavily! Made a burlap tree star, burlap garland, and only used ball ornaments and icicles. (I thought it looked so formal and pretty last year! This year I think it looks kinda generic…) Looking back at posts, I think I was kinda stressed out with two little ones, and being way too hard on myself. I later loosened up a bit. 🙂
• 2011: real tree, learned how to use my still-a-point-and-shoot camera, same burlap and garland but went back to the hand-me-down ornaments along with a big tub of red ornaments found at a garage sale. I shared my icicle tutorial and added more!
  

Also this year, we decided to do an ornament exchange and it’s been so nice receiving your handmade goodies in the mail! I was a little nervous about making 21 ornaments, LOL but getting them has been awesome and so worth it.

What theme/décor did you use on your tree this year? Other years? Real tree or fake? If you have any links of your tree or home tours, feel free to post them in the comments! I’d love to see them!!!!