Put the baubles down! Step away from the tree and read this first for some tips on how to dress your tree ‘properly’! Christmas has come early for me in the last two years – the first week in September to be exact! I help set up the Christmas shop at Liberty in London – the famous luxury emporium with its, quite frankly, awesome xmas shop! After spending ages last year documenting how we dress our trees for you, I was horrified to discover that I’d lost the photos! So I’ve tried again this year with my Forest Floor tree. Here’s how to properly dress your sapin (yes I didn’t know there was an art to it either, hence why I wanted to share my tips with you!)

1 – Pick a Theme

Yep, this is an expensive way of doing things but it does produce the best results! Whether you’d like a modern, Scandinavian crafts theme / a super-classic gold and red with tartan look / or perhaps a celestial textural, all-white creation with plumes! Just pop into Liberty and you can easily shop straight from the huge loosely Dickensian inspired collection, you won’t be able to choose! The more limited your colour palette, the better the overall effect. I dressed mine with a forest flora and fauna theme…

2 – Collect Your Decorations and Materials

Get some wire and cutters – they are your key tools! Start with the lights then choose your string and wrap it up down your tree (no tinsel here!) I chose this berries string.

Next collect your baubles and ornaments! This is the most fun thing for me as I get to go ‘shopping’ in store! Stick to around 10-15 different decoration options with around a third of them being a round classic bauble shape. You’ll need around 4-10 of each of these options. (Yep, that’s a lot of decs!) Also pick up a few fun ornaments – I chose some cute deer and mushroom clusters that you can stuff into gaps at the end.

3 – Make your Clusters

Cut pieces of wire approximately 10cm long. Collect together 3 or 4 decorations that look pretty and balanced together. I advise having two baubles and two other shaped decorations together. Thread the wire through the metal hoops on the base of each bauble and not the ribbon that allows it to hang longer. You want the cluster nice and tight! Hold it up afterwards to check how they look together. (watch out for those rather phallic looking clusters, you may not want those protruding from your tree… or maybe you do.)

4 – Tie Your Clusters to Your Tree

Take your cluster and twist the wire round a frond so that it’s nice and tight. you may like to nestle some clusters further in the tree too. You’ll then need to rearrange your cluster so that it looks best. Here I tucked the acorn so the string didn’t show. Add all your clusters to the tree. (about 10-15) Then take some extra decorations that are odd shapes or fun ornaments and hang them close to the trunk and in gaps.

5 – Add Your Ornaments

This is a fun little extra to give your tree that Liberty Look. Take some large but light ornaments and sit them in the branches. These can be peacock feathers, glittery masks, angels that would normally top the tree, bunting, you name it!

6 – Finish With a Wreath

What angel? She can sit in the tree with her sisters, it’s all about the wreath here! Hoop it over the top of the tree and Voila!

My Woodland tree on the left and a London themed christmas tree on the right. Make your tree as stuffed as you like. I added a bit more to mine after the photo. Good luck! Here are some more snaps of our beautiful Christmas Shop. Do pop in if you can!

My favourite thing – These felt animal busts, aren’t they the cutest! Zoe, my colleague models the advent calendar tree ’dress’!

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