holiday project #4 - loading up the tree... times 4

The three days after Thanksgiving mean Christmas bins hauled out, lights untangled, ornaments unpacked... and of course, trees loaded!

This year I moved a tree into the corner of the living room.  This tree has spent the last 8 Christmas seasons on the buffet in the dining room.  With the removal of our lovely 80's/90's oak bookcase and the addition of this salvaged, not yet finished cabinet project, well I had room to put my small tree here!  It's nice to be able to enjoy the lights from the sofa for once.

My sign I won last year in a giveaway fills in the empty space above the cabinet just fine.... I may have to devise a temporary cover for it for after the holidays since this cabinet redo is pretty low on the project list at Red Gate Farm and it's going to look pretty bare up there.

I filled in around the tree with aqua jars, silver Pottery Barn trees, vintage gold beaded garland and a cute little ivory Santa.

The tree itself is loaded with some of my vintage Shiny Brites.

And inside the cabinet?  No shelf (or shelves) yet so I layered in a bunch of stuff from around the house... like my vintage aqua child sized folding chair, a light up glittery candle, vintage light fixture (stuffed with Ikea battery led lights!), gold trees, a vintage wooden box on end, a larger ivory and gold Santa my mom made me many years ago, and some simple kraft paper letters that spell "noel".  I think the vintage chair will hold place on top of the cabinet (with the sign) after the holidays.  It's one of my favorite things I own, someday there may be a little bottom to sit in it around Red Gate Farm.

And speaking of cabinets and lights, well the kitchen cabinet couldn't be left out!  I used two strings of the twinkle, wire lights from Crate and Barrel in here.  Perfect since I could easily slip them over the shelves and light up two shelves with each string... and like these, they go out automatically after 6 hours.

And what are they lighting?  Some cute vintage things, of course.

Including this cute little paper Santa that says "Season's Greetings"... not really sure what it is for but I got a whole stack of them at the sale for just $1.

And my new favorite little idea... and a sort of project... two little vintagetrucks loaded up (tree number 2 and 3) with little white bottle brush trees.  The blue one is plastic and the red is a little metal tootsietoy truck.

And to be safe, I tied the load down, of course!  My many rolls of bakery twine came in handy in red and aqua.

And what inspired me to load up a truck with a tree?  Well this cute little tootsietoy metal truck off of Etsy.  This tree is glued and upright, but I wanted to keep my options open for future truck uses.  The putz house in the background is a new to me, one I got just this fall.  It's more pinky peach than the picture looks...

Tree number 4 is also a new addition to my (ahem) collection.  I saw this vintage aluminum tree at a local antique store on Veteran's Day and decided if it was still there the following weekend I'd get it... it was and I did!  I used my aqua Shiny Brites and another string of the twinkle lights to load it up....

Including this sweet aqua bell...

Now THIS tree is on the buffet, which goes well with my little shadow box... everything aqua, pink, silver and twinkly.

But in full disclosure... this tree, the "real" tree,  makes 5.  As you can see, it's not done yet...

With the chaos, blurry is a good idea.

Hope you are enjoying the start of December and the holiday season,

linking up to

Elizabeth & Co

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