// Christmas at the Cabin - Dream Tree Challenge

Christmas at the Cabin - TheCluelessGirl.com - The Clueless Girl's Guide - Dream Tree Challenge 2014 #MichaelsMakers #TagATree #DreamTreeChallenge
If you follow me on Instagram then you may have noticed that I have a fully decorated Christmas tree chilling in my living room already... yeah, it was up before Halloween! Do you think I'm totally loony?! Well, I promised you there was a reason for it! I participated in Michaels' 3rd Annual Dream Tree Challenge this year and it marked my very first project as part of the Michaels Makers team! I'm not a DIY/craft blogger by far, but I definitely consider myself a maker and I thought that by accepting this invitation I'd be able to push myself out of my creative "rut" and get back to making things post-baby. So far I'm really enjoying the creative push!

I love decorating our Christmas tree. Every year I get so excited to reimagine our tree and adorn it with personal ornaments and touches. Without fail, we always end up going the way of brown and gold for our tree. It's our "happy place" when it comes to festive holiday decoration. Since I was challenged to create my ultimate "dream tree," I knew exactly where to start.
Christmas at the Cabin - TheCluelessGirl.com - The Clueless Girl's Guide - Dream Tree Challenge 2014 #MichaelsMakers #TagATree #DreamTreeChallenge Christmas at the Cabin - TheCluelessGirl.com - The Clueless Girl's Guide - Dream Tree Challenge 2014 #MichaelsMakers #TagATree #DreamTreeChallenge Christmas at the Cabin - TheCluelessGirl.com - The Clueless Girl's Guide - Dream Tree Challenge 2014 #MichaelsMakers #TagATree #DreamTreeChallenge
Christmas at the Cabin - TheCluelessGirl.com - The Clueless Girl's Guide - Dream Tree Challenge 2014 #MichaelsMakers #TagATree #DreamTreeChallenge
Mike was a huge help on this and we worked together every step of the way. I suggested a "rustic and natural" theme for the tree, and he said it felt like Christmas at a cabin. Hence the title! So that's the theme this year... A Cabin Christmas! We wanted to "bring the outdoors in" and so we chose a variety of things from Michaels to make it happen. I'll be 100% honest with you, I was nervous. I had no idea how this would all fall together. Even after we started decorating it I was questioning whether it made sense or not! But now that it's all done, I'm SO in love with it. It really is our Dream Tree!

It was important to us not to just go grab a ton of ready-made ornaments to toss on the tree because we really had a specific vision in mind. Since the "Raw" collection launched earlier this year, I knew so many of those pieces would make great decorations. We kept a pretty simple color palette (varieties of brown and cream), but really relied on the textures to make the tree. There's everything from cork tags to decorative potpourri, grapevine balls, and silk flowers. We did buy a couple of ready-made ornaments like the kraft stars, wooden snowflakes (love these!), and the icicles. Everything else was pulled apart and/or attached with some ornament hangers or twine.
Christmas at the Cabin - TheCluelessGirl.com - The Clueless Girl's Guide - Dream Tree Challenge 2014 #MichaelsMakers #TagATree #DreamTreeChallenge
Christmas at the Cabin - TheCluelessGirl.com - The Clueless Girl's Guide - Dream Tree Challenge 2014 #MichaelsMakers #TagATree #DreamTreeChallengeChristmas at the Cabin - TheCluelessGirl.com - The Clueless Girl's Guide - Dream Tree Challenge 2014 #MichaelsMakers #TagATree #DreamTreeChallenge
One of my favorite bits are the ivory and gold glitter orchid flowers that we pulled off of a big bouquet and glued to hangers. Mike had the brilliant idea of taking apart some gold boutonniere style pieces and wrapping around stems throughout the tree. We even hung cinnamon sticks straight on the tree so it'd smell good! 

And can you see our "tree skirt" up above? That's three bags of Spanish Moss! We really wanted to sell the rustic theme and I'm so glad we went with the moss rather than a traditional fabric skirt. It can be a little messy if you scatter it around, but luckily Toby and the dogs stay out of it, and Linden can't crawl. We got lucky this year haha! 

One of my favorite things about our Christmas trees each year is how personal they are. Everyone gets a new ornament every year, and we add them to our growing collection. In order to make this tree a bit more "us" we added wooden initials for each member of the family, and I Mod Podged some Instagram photos on thin wood circles to make our own ornaments.
Christmas at the Cabin - TheCluelessGirl.com - The Clueless Girl's Guide - Dream Tree Challenge 2014 #MichaelsMakers #TagATree #DreamTreeChallenge Christmas at the Cabin - TheCluelessGirl.com - The Clueless Girl's Guide - Dream Tree Challenge 2014 #MichaelsMakers #TagATree #DreamTreeChallenge Christmas at the Cabin - TheCluelessGirl.com - The Clueless Girl's Guide - Dream Tree Challenge 2014 #MichaelsMakers #TagATree #DreamTreeChallenge

I'm really over the moon about how the tree turned out. I feel like it's the perfect tree for us. It came out far better than I could have ever anticipated! And it's got Toby really excited for Christmas this year! If you want to check out the other Dream Trees from the Michaels Makers, pop over to their blog, The Glue String, for links and photos!

If you're in the market for a new tree this year, Michaels is having their Make It Merry Tree Event November 2nd through 8th and all trees 6ft and taller are 50% off. Their Make It Merry lookbook is full of tips and projects to get you stoked on the holidays.

Now you can anticipate one Michaels' Makers crafty post from me each month! I'm excited to see what types of challenges are ahead. I'll be back in a couple of weeks to share my holiday tree decorating tips (you know, if you trust me to give any advice on that! haha) but until then let me know what you think about our tree! Did we manage to pull off the rustic cabin look?! xo

32 comments:

  1. I really like the color palette, so organic and textured. The spools are an idea that I want for my own!

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    1. Thanks Maeve! Please share a photo if you end up adding the spools to your own! Or even if you don't! xoxo

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  2. It turned out amazing! Welcome to the Michaels Makers team. :)

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  3. Love love love this tree!

    The natural 'ornaments' are great. Really clever use of the cinnamon sticks too. I'm going to steal so many ideas from this for our tree this year!

    xxx

    naturallybeige.wordpress.com

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    1. Ah please share a photo of your finished creation! I'd love to see!

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  4. LOVE. So much love. That is just stunning (GREAT JOB) and that picture with the boys? Slays me. I love Christmas and that family photo just encapsulates every single reason why. :) So awesome.

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    1. Aren't they just too much?! Ah! I'm so tempted to just print that for our Christmas card this year haha!

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  5. This is so beautiful! I love the colour palette and the moss skirt!

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    1. Thanks Louise! I'm wondering how much we'll have to vacuum up once Christmas is over :P

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  6. Legit the prettiest Christmas tree I have ever seen. Holy shit.

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  7. Wow, it's beautiful! I'm so jealous, well done xx

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  8. Beautiful! I only have a 10 dollar pre-lit Target tree, but I always try to make it look the best I can! Yours is just breathtaking though!!

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    1. Nothing wrong with a $10 tree! It's what you do with it that counts! <3

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  9. Beautiful tree & love the theme too!

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    1. Thanks Jess! It definitely fits the mood of our living room which is nice!

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  10. It's awesome. Seriously, it's one of the best Christmas trees I've ever seen. I love the theme, the color palette, everything! I am so looking forward to Christmas now! :)

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  11. Oh my god, your tree is so beautiful! Love Christmas :)

    Anna xo
    Cinnamon Girl blog

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  12. It turned out gorgeous, Kaelah!! I admit that I side-eyed seeing a Christmas tree photo in my bloglovin' feed at first though - haha! But one look through these photos and I'm kinda ready to go home and pull out my tree. ;)

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    1. haha! I felt so silly decorating before Halloween (I think the FedEx guy is STILL side eyein' me!) but I must admit it's totallllly put me in the holiday spirit! Is Christmas music TOO much though?! xo

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  13. "Brown paper packages tied up with string...." ;)

    Kaelah, you did an amazing job! I love the alternative style of the burlap bow on the top. The Spanish Moss is amazing, although I could definitely see it getting all over the place. And on a side note... those white doggie sculptures are beyond cute.

    xoxo
    Audrey

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    1. Aren't they great?! Randomly found them at TJ Maxx one day! I thought it was totally fate that they had an english AND french bulldog!

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  14. What a beautiful tree. Ours always ends up being a crazy mish mash of colors and textures, and we love it that way-- but I like this well put together look too!

    SundayswithStephanie.blogspot.com

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    1. Sometimes those are the very best trees! No theme, no color palette, just pure family love!

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HEY! Thanks for dropping by. xo KB