I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! I can’t believe that Christmas is right around the corner. Where has 2017 gone?

Over the long Thanksgiving weekend, I  did minor Black Friday shopping Friday morning. I ran to Michael’s and TjMaxx because was wide awake at 6:30 and couldn’t go back to bed. Saturday, I went and cut down my Christmas Tree with my niece Bella. So with a saw in hand, we headed about 20 miles east of Green Bay to Aissen Tree Farm, in Luxemburg, WI.

We headed out and after about 10 minutes of searching for a tree, we found Kayla. The owners of the farm name each tree that’s available to cut down. There was a Mark, Charles, Phillip, Amanda, and Peter to name a few.  Kayla was the perfect size. not too tall or wide for my house.

I look very lumberjack-esque. Or is Lumberjill more appropriate? Either way, I’m glad I didn’t wear anything heavier, it was in the mid 40’s and perfect weather.

Even Miss B got in on the action, even though she didn’t want to get her pants dirty. That’s half the fun! I thought I wasn’t going to be able to cut the tree down. I’d get so far, and the saw would get stuck. Eventually I was able to cut enough to have Bella pull the tree to open it up until it fell.

Bella looks very unimpressed.

Just enough room to spare, Kayla fit inside my car all bailed up.

After I got the tree home, I cut off the bottom to level it off. My initial hack job was pretty spectacular. I cut off some of the bottom boughs so it would fit in my stand. The left over boughs are what I used to make Holiday Swag.

Items needed

• Leftover Pine Boughs
• Floral Wire
• Scissors
• Pruning cutter
• Floral Decor – I used winter themed cotton branches, red and “iced” berries, and scented pine cones
• Ribbon

To start, I trimmed my boughs and took a long one to use as my base that all others would be attached to. I then took to pieces and laid them so they would fan out on each side of the center branch

Once I had all of the branches attached and filled out, I added embellishments. For this swag, I decided to use pine cones, berries and cotton branches. To secure the pine cones, I used the floral wire, wrapping it around each pine cone, taking care not to break them and hiding the wire as best I could.

I then filled placed the cotton in various spots, and finally filling in bare spots with the berries.  The berries were already pre-clumped (for lack of a better term) on the garland. I was able to peal off the berries in clumps and began filling bare spots, spreading the berries to make it look more natural.

Next up was the bow. I’m not very good when it comes to making bows. I just kind of loop the ribbon, twist it, rotate it, secure it and repeat until i have something that sort of resembles a big poofy bow. I attached the bow with wire to cover up where the branches were all connected.

I hung the finished swag in my tobacco basket on my gallery wall.

I still have a a bunch of branches left. If I have time this weekend I may try to make a long swag.