Our pediatrician advised us against getting a Christmas tree this year (something about a patient of hers eating a red Christmas ball last year thinking it was an apple--yikes! My kids would totally do that). Her one exception would be if we had a way to keep our little ones away from said "apple" bearing tree, like an extra room with a door. Um, yeah, we definitely don't have any extra rooms for housing a Christmas tree. Bummer!!
And really as much as I love Christmas tree (we usually get a real one!) I was inclined to agree with her. I didn't relish the thought of fighting with my kids all holiday season to keep the tree upright and them from ingesting ornaments.
Thankfully the pediatrician told us this in October so I've had plenty of time to ponder what we might do instead. When I saw this on pinterest I thought it would be perfect and fun for our boys.
I purchased all of the supplies and unsure of how big we wanted to make this sucker I purchased some extra green felt just in case thinking we wouldn't use it all. When my much more artistically inclined husband offered to do the tree while I tackled the ornaments I heartily agreed. And of course since we apparently do nothing simply we came up with this:
The picture does not do it justice (we used every bit of "extra" green felt I bought!). It is really pretty (especially for a felt tree!), festive and not overly kiddish. For ornaments we did: stars, snowflakes, poinsettas, and blue, gray, and red balls. I found some fabric glitter spray paint (who knew that existed? not me!) at Joann's, on clearance no less, which I used to spice up the ornaments a bit. It doesn't show up in the picture at all but they all sparkle a bit. I opted for more sophisticated colors than the original idea and I love them. I feel like it really classes up the project and makes it something the whole family can appreciate and enjoy, not just the little ones.
I used this tutorial on how to create a fabric wall decal using heat 'n bond and we ironed our giant tree to the wall. I wasn't sure how well this method would hold up, but thus far it is holding up pretty well against it's formidable opponents (1 year old twins!) and they love to take all the ornaments off within reach (and hand each of them to me one by one while I thank them profusely. "Christmas tree" is a new favorite game in our house). They have pulled part of the bottom of the tree off the wall, but I smooth it back down each time and it lays flat still (if that makes any sense at all). I think I'm going to get some 3M poster tape to tack down the edges they can reach in hopes that it will keep them at bay and the tree up until after the holidays. So far so good!
I have to say I absolutely love our tree. Like so much I feel like it should get a name. (Hubert, maybe?) I just love that it started out as something for the kids and morphed into something we can all appreciate and enjoy. We'll definitely be holding on to this and putting it up each year for the kiddos. If I miraculously find a better way to tack it up without damaging the wall I'll be sure to share.
It looks like our first year without a Christmas tree won't be so bad after all.
Welcome to the family, Hubert.
Post Edit: The heat n' bond method didn't last for us. My munchkins pulled it off the wall and you can't re-adhere the heat n' bond. I ended up using a spray adhesive to reattach it and it worked like a dream! See more info on my post Christmas update
