38 days 05 hours 13 minutes 30 seconds...

Holiday Greetings!

Okay, so for my next Christmas post I have found someting truly spectacular that I didn't even know existed: an Irish themed Christmas tree (and decorations).  I think that this is absolutely brilliant, if you're the kind of person who can appreciate fairies, shamrocks, and leprechauns.  The person who decorated the tree above obviously spent a lot of time and money in decorations, but she did post a section on how to make an Irish Christmas tree with bare essentials, cutting down on time and cost.

Setting up an Irish tree with the bare essentials

Obviously I used a lot of ornaments and decorations for my Irish tree, but if you don’t want to spend that much time and money then here are the bare essentials I recommend.

• Wrap the tree in bright green and gold ribbon.
• Hang shamrock ornaments on the tree.
• Hang Irish snowman ornaments on the tree. These ornaments are gorgeous enough to carry the tree on their own.

She also posted some directions for making various ornaments.  I'll post them here if anyone wants to have a go at them.

Setting up the flying Irish Fairies

One of the more magical elements on this tree is the appearance of Irish fairies flying around, hanging beads and ornaments. For years, I’ve created this effect with white doves, but for an Irish Christmas tree fairies are perfect. This sort of thing always draws attention from guests and everyone who sees it.
Here are a few tips for hanging the Irish fairies:

• Use white sewing thread (or whatever color matches your ceiling) to hang the fairies. You could also try “invisible” thread.
• To keep the fairies from twisting and rotating randomly they require two anchor points. This keeps them still and pointed in the direction you intended.
• Fairies that are “hanging ornaments” need two strings, both anchored at the ceiling. If your fairy has little loops like mine, then you can simply use one long string slid through the loop then pinned to the ceiling at two different places.
• Fairies that are posed “hanging beads” require only one string anchored to the ceiling since the beads attached to the tree act as the 2nd anchor point.
• Hang the fairies at different heights and distances from the tree to create a more natural look.

Making pot of gold ornaments

The pot of gold ornaments are very easy to make.
What you’ll need:

• Little plastic pots (black)
• Plastic gold coins
• Green spray paint
• Green glitter spray paint
• Tissue paper
• Gold cord

One other idea is to use gold foil wrapped chocolate coins instead of plastic coins. They would make a nice little Christmas treat for the kids - and the adults for that matter. They might actually even look better. These pots would also work great on a Sugar Plum Tree. Just fill them with your favorite candy.
What to do:

1. Spray paint the pots green
   Take a plastic black pot and spray paint it holiday green or whatever shade you prefer. This may require 2 or 3 coats to get solid coverage. You can leave the pots black if you prefer, but I recommend painting them because black doesn’t show up very well on the tree. Obviously, if you can find green pots then you can skip this step all together.
2. Spray paint the pots with glitter green
   This is just to make the ornament stand out a little more. Without the glitter spray paint, the pots looked pretty drab and boring. I know the glitter doesn’t show up very well in the photo, but trust me, the pots look a lot better with the glitter.
3. Stuff the pot with tissue
   This is just so you don’t have to fill the pot with a whole bunch of coins. It saves a little money. Tissue paper is what I used, but just about anything will work.
4. Tie gold cord to the handle
   This is to create a hanger loop for the pot. You can actually hang the pot by it’s handle, but when you do this the pine needles obscure the view of the coins and the pots also have a tendency to slide off if you don’t place them just right.
5. Place gold coins in the pot
   Arrange the coins so they cover the tissue and so that they poke out of the pot a little.
6. Optional step: glue the coins
   The coins can fall out very easily, so you might want use a little dab of glue here and there to secure the coins in place. I personally did not bother with this.

Okay, that's all I have for today.  There are a ton more ideas and how-to's on the website listed below.  Please take a minute to visit it and read about how each ornament represents a certain aspect of Irish culture.

http://www.amazing-christmas-ideas.com/decorating-irish-christmas-tree.html