How to Make Your Artificial Christmas Tree Look Better

A few days ago I read in someone's blog how artificial Christmas trees can look "sick". Well, that's true. They can. (Then again, I've seen my share of real Christmas trees that look a little under the weather, as well.) This isn't about the debate involving real-versus-fake Christmas trees, and it isn't intended to defend fake Christmas trees. The fact is a lot of fake trees do look "sick", although one reason for that can be that a lot of the fake trees we see are in stores or offices, where someone throws on some lights and some plain, glass, ball-ornaments, and calls it, "decorated". There's a coffee shop near me, and the owner hires someone to put up a big, fake, tree just outside the shop and decorate it with lights and bags of coffee (which is a nice change from the generic-glass-ball, retail or office tree - but which isn't exactly most people's idea of a beautiful Christmas tree).

You shouldn't judge the potential of an artificial tree by those you see in offices, stores, and restaurants. While malls or other places that often have large, beautiful, trees that are professionally decorated; offices, smaller businesses often decorate by employees with little say in, and/or budget for, tree decorating.

There can be two main problems with artificial trees. The first is an easy one to solve, and that it that that people can have a tendency not to take the time to shape (fluff) the branches once the tree is up.

The second problem can come in not realizing that, while real trees can generally "hold their own" with only the basic lights and ball-ornaments; artificial trees can need a little more in terms of decorations (and that doesn't mean "yet more ball-ornaments" or "yet more lights", although as many lights as can be safely added does make a fake tree look a little nicer).

In general, artificial trees need enough decorations to detract from the look of "more fake branches than ornaments" without looking like they just have too many of the same kind of ornament on them. In other words, even the nicest and most high-quality artificial tree looks better with a little camouflage. The trouble with coming up with enough decorations to camouflage a fake tree is that it can cost a lot more than you want to (or can) spend if you head out to nearest, upscale, shop that's full of beautiful extras for decorating trees.   Fake trees have more "surface" to cover than their real counterparts..

One thing to keep in mind about artificial trees is that sometimes it isn't enough to just add a decoration to the ends of branches. It can help to fill in spaces a few inches in from the ends of the branches. One advantage to artificial trees is that branches can be slightly bent to support decorations that are not hanging from strings or wires. That doesn't mean you have to "stuff" the tree with all kinds of big decorations. Still, using a "layering" approach (such as bows on the very end of the branches, glass ornaments just in back of the bows, and clumps of berries in the bare spaces that show up once the "main" decorating is done, and deeper into the tree) camouflages a fake tree most effectively.

Something else to keep in mind is that it isn't always enough to add another dozen glass balls to the two dozen you already have. Whatever your "main" kind of ornament is, it helps to add a few different types of decorations to it (at least for artificial trees).

Here's a few ideas for camouflaging ("padding") your decorated, fake, tree inexpensively:

The "Main" Ornaments

Having "main" ornaments isn't always necessary. Some people decorate trees with nothing but lights, bows, and pine-cones. Many like to have some kind of "main" ornament, like the traditional balls or other shaped ornaments. There's nothing wrong with the traditional "ball" ornament in any mix of colors; but artificial trees can often look just a little nicer if these "main" ornaments are selected with an for particular beauty.

When it comes to fake trees, less isn't always more. Often, more is more. Balls with pretty artwork, sparkles, "embossing", or "frost" can add a nicer look than the "usual" plain ornaments. Using ornaments in only one or two colors can serve as a foundation for building a color theme. Real trees can look great with the "standard" mix of colored balls. Artificial trees can look nicer if a little more attention is paid to selecting "main" ornaments on which a theme can be built. That's not saying that a theme isn't also nice on a real tree, but a carefully put together theme on a fake tree can detract from the fact that the tree is not real. In other words, fake trees need a little more thought when it comes to decorating them.

"Secondary" Ornaments

You don't necessarily need "secondary" ornaments just because you have a fake tree, but these are smaller, "supplemental", ornaments that can help fill in green spaces on the tree. These "secondary" ornaments can be a mix of smaller ornaments, or they can have their own theme (a bunch of miniature toys or gold-tone musical instruments or, perhaps, white ceramic ornaments). These look great on a real tree too, of course, but the "simple look" tends to look nicer on real trees only. The "simple look" is what can make fake trees look "sick".

Finishing Touches That Are More Than Just Finishing Touches On A Fake Tree

The following "finishing touches" are particularly effective in helping to camouflage an artificial tree. In general, they can all be used together; although, depending on the tree's theme, you may want to pass on one or more of them. As with all tree-decorating, how many of each you use depends on your preferences and the look for which you're aiming.

Some finishing-touch decorations act as filler and added color and interest, the same way they are on a real tree.  Your artificial tree needs more than a real tree would.  Other finishing-touch decorations (like bows, gingerbread men, flowers, leaves, or anything that has a lot of surface to it) actually hide more  of the artificial green.   With a real tree all that's required, regardless of your choice of decorations, is the usual adding of color and filling in bare spaces.  With your artificial tree, decorations do the job of adding color and interest, but also of "hiding" the tree, itself.

Ribbons or bows

Rolls of ribbon from a dollar store or discount-department store can be wrapped around your tree, "garland style" or used to make several bows to add to the ends of branches. Whether you choose satin-like, nylon/gauzy, velvet, sparkly, or a traditional Christmas print; ribbon makes an inexpensive and great-looking addition to a tree. White, cream, or gold tend to make a tree look more ethereal. Red tends to make it look more traditional. Nylon/gauzy ribbon adds an ethereal or elegant look. Velvet and traditional prints add a traditional flavor. Sparkly adds - well - sparkle.

Ribbons or bows may be the easiest and least expensive ways to "pad" decorations and add polish to a fake tree.

Pine cones (with or without little bows on top).

A bag of pine-cones can be purchased at a dollar store for - well - a dollar. If you live in the right area real pine-cones are free, but there's sap to deal with (and sap on your artificial tree isn't good for a number of reasons). Real or fake, pine-cones make inexpensive decorations. A hot-glue gun, some ribbon, sparkles and/or a can of spray paint can turn pine-cones from natural to whatever you want (if you prefer something a little different from natural).

Gingerbread Men

Bake them yourself or buy a box of them in the cookie aisle. (Li'l Debbie makes cute gingerbread men, eight in a box, for just over a dollar.) Buying them at the bakery will cost you quite a bit, although your grocery store's own bakery may package up several smallish gingerbread men and not charge too much for them.

If gingerbread men are too traditional for your tastes there's always sugar cookies (plain or decorated in a way that goes with your tree theme). Sugar-cookie bells or angels add less "heaviness" than gingerbread men do.

Using cookies on a fake trees means either wrapping them plastic or else cleaning the branches well after Christmas. Nobody wants to store crumbs or sugar in the Christmas-tree box in the basement all year, particularly in when bug season rolls around.

Candy Canes (of course)

One box is never enough. Buy about 24. The make great "filler", but a mere 8 won't do the job. Since candy canes come in more colors/flavors than the traditional red-and-white peppermint you can usually find just the right color for your own tree's theme. (I like the red, white, and green candy canes because they're traditional and yet less "country-looking" or "heavy looking" than the red-and-white.)

Flowers (fake or dried)

Whether it's small, particularly nicely made, artificial, pointsettias or real baby's breath; choose one kind that will go well with the look for which you're aiming and add several. Again, white or cream tends to create an ethereal look (especially when used with white lights). Red contributes to a traditional look (but also adds color the dark green). Combining red and white, or combining something like mini-artificial pointsettias with baby's breath, will create yet a different look. Of course, if you have a different color theme for your tree, choosing flowers that go along with it may mean looking for some in unconventional colors.

Artificial holly and berries make good filler.

Berries

Discount stores and dollar stores usually have bags of berries, or stems with lots of berries that can be removed. Placing clumps of berries into bare spots on a decorated tree can add color, as well as camouflage. One advantage to artificial trees is that branches can be slightly bent to support decorations that are not hanging from strings or wires.

Strings of Beads

Strings of beads, by themselves, don't do a lot to camouflage an artificial tree; but used in addition to other types of ornaments they can be an effective addition. Choose a color/type that will add to your theme.

Mini-Wrapped Gifts

Sometimes these can be purchased in the Christmas-ornament aisle, but they can be made easily with small pieces of wrapping paper, small boxes you already have or boxes you make from cardboard (or even sturdy paper plates). Choose a wrapping paper that goes well with your theme, and tie your mni-gifts with narrow ribbon and hang them with a wire ornament-hook.

Lights

Real trees can look fine with a couple of basic strings of lights. Artificial trees can benefit from having a few more lights or a little "creative" lighting.

Choose white, choose colored, or choose both (as long as you don't string together too many sets for one outlet). Using as many lights as is safe can add to the "chockful of lights" look at night. String both colored and white, to be lighted separately, can offer different lighting options. Adding white lights to rows of mostly colored lights can brighten up what are often darker strings of lights. Putting a few lights on during the day can make an artificial tree look that much nicer during the day, even if you only do this when company comes.

Tree Skirt

Real or fake, every Christmas tree needs a great tree skirt. Fake trees, in particular, need a really nice one. It doesn't have to be a ready-made, store-bought, and expensive tree skirt. The fabric and look matter more than whether or not it was made specifically for the base of a Christmas tree. If you can't find one (or find one inexpensive enough) you think is really nice, a piece of fabric from WalMart's fabric department or the right size table runner from a dollar store may do the job nicely.

No matter what theme or colors you choose, and no matter how tall or not-so-tall the tree, your artificial tree can every bit as beautiful, if not more beautiful, than any number of real trees that aren't always even full enough to support too many extra decorations.

Pre-Lit trees come with either white or colored lights, and some manufacturers aim to recreate the traditional look of the old-fashioned, darker, colored, lights (as opposed to the lights coming in the colors used since the cooler lights have become as popular as they are).  The following doesn't apply to any colored lights that are designed to have the same colors as the hotter-burning, old-fashioned, tree lights.

This could be "just me", but I've found the darker, traditional-colors, lights make me feel as if a little bit of headache is looming, and even as if a little nausea is threatening.   I haven't been able to figure out if it's mainly the red lights or if it's just the mix of dark colors.  The old "hot-burning" tree lights in the traditional red, dark yellow-orange, green, and dark blue didn't have as bright/piercing a light as the newer lights do.

Keep in mind that the darker lights look different under store lights, with different lighting at home at night, and in daylight (if you plan to have them on during daylight).

If you're prone to be bothered by something like red or blue piercing LED lights on electronic equipment you may want to pay particular attention to the color of the tree lights before buying. 

There are a few solutions to this potential problem:

1.  Buy a tree with white lights.

2.  Replace some of the darker bulbs/"lanterns" with white ones, perhaps replacing equal numbers of each color.

3.  Add a couple of strings of white lights that can be plugged into a separate outlet.  This reduces the all-dark, piercing, look of the darker lights while still allowing the colored lights you may prefer.  If the darker lights only bother you with one room-lighting arrangement or another, you always have the option of not plugging in the white lights and having those old-fashioned colors at least sometimes.

The following is just something I've added here from my Christmas blog. It doesn't have anything to do with the main purpose of this Hub, but I thought I'd add it because I happen to have it written.

The debate over real-versus-fake Christmas trees has gone on, I'm guessing,  since the invention of artificial trees (or at least since they made their way into a lot of homes, since most people accept the fact that fake trees exist in offices, stores, malls, and wherever real trees aren't practical or fire-safe enough.  When I was a kid members of my family were private "horrified" when my young-married cousin got a silver tree (complete with rotating light wheel that made it turn colors) and invited everyone from third-cousins closer (and their brothers) to view this "new-fangled" spectacle.   To this day there is still the occasional reference to that gliche in history when fake trees were at their worst and reserved for only those lacking in good, Christmas, "taste".   While green fake trees were bad, silver was just beyond comprehension (and rotating light wheels brought any silver tree from "beyond to comprehension" to laughable).

We were a "real-tree-only" family.  I won't go into all the bad things we had to say about fake Christmas trees because you've probably heard them all before anyway.  When my childhood family moved to a new house that had a fireplace in the livingroom we often discussed how nice it would be to have a fire in it at Christmas time.  My father always said we couldn't have a fire if we had a real tree, because the place-of-honor location for our tree each year was too close to the fireplace.  As we, kids, grew toward our late teens there was increasing talk about having a fire in the fireplace.  I guess it was because kids that age long for "feeling like Christmas" more than they often do.  So, one year my parents decided to make the jump from a real tree to a fake one.  Not willing to accept any number of the "lousy-looking" fake trees on the market, they made it a point to select the highest priced tree they could find.  Having accepted that there would be "no smell" with this tree that so went against all of our grains, and accepting that we could not use the same old string of hot-burning, old fashioned, lights we'd used for years, we began to enjoy our Christmas times with the ever-handy Duraflame logs and the occasionally unsettling sparks that flew out past the fireplace screen.  Like most people with "living" fireplaces, we learned the extreme importance of an open flue.    

Completely aware that this new tree didn't really measure up to any of the previous ones, we reminded ourselves that it was better shaped and fuller than any real one we'd ever have; and we convinced ourselves it looked "nice enough" (even if was "too bad" we couldn't have the "regular lights").   With us, kids, as grown up as we were, and with this revolutionizing of our Christmas, my mother apparently decided this was a good time to break it to us that it was time to stop using the beaten up, hand-made-and-Crayola-crayon-colored, paper ornaments we'd so faithfully hung on every tree since kindergarten.  It was also time to get rid of things like the string of eight tiny reindeer that had been broken and lost to the point of only being three tiny reindeer.  My older sister's kindergarten contribution had also been some Santa faces made from cotton balls, two sequins for the eyes, one for the nose, and (apparently) none for the mouth (although she was five years older than I, so I think by the time I came along the mouths had already lost their Elmer's glue).  In any case, it was time to stop using the cotton-ball Santa faces since they'd pretty been turned into faceless cotton balls with a sequin or two and a red, paper, hat.  We would, of course, save them - just not use them.

I don't know what my younger brother thought of all these Christmas changes, but my sister and I reluctantly admitted we glad not to "have to" use those Crayola, Elmer's glue, and paper-fastener decorations any longer.    In spite of any reservations about "those little lights" and no smell, we had our new, more grown-up, Christmases and fires in the fireplace.  By the second year we had adjusted to the fake tree.  (It was, after all, "better" than most.)  Even so, no Christmas went by without at least a few remarks that justified the fact that we had sunken to the depths of using a fake tree with no smell.  I don't actually recall how many of these new, grown-up, Christmases we had before my father died on Thanksgiving in the early 1973.  By that time my sister was married, and my brother was still young.  I fell into inheriting my father's role as "Christmas-tree putter-upper and light-stringer".  I also fell into the role of sole Christmas-tree decorator.  This would apparently become our "tradition" until I got married in the late 70's.  A year didn't go by when I didn't think about how I "shouldn't have inherited this job" so early in my life.

When my husband and I were "young marrieds" and living in an apartment there was the usual question such young couples have, "Should we bother with a tree when we aren't home most of the time, and when we'll be having Christmas at parents' homes anyway?"   There were the  usual suggestions of friends and relatives, "Why don't you just get a small tree for a table?"  As far as I was concerned, a small tree on a table was a table decoration - not a Christmas tree.  I decided I'd buy a fake tree but not spend a lot of money for it.  (After all, we weren't home most of the time.)   Since we had no children yet, and since our "real" Christmas would be celebrated at my mother's house, I indulged the dream a lot of young women have of decorating a tree according to my own idea of what makes a beautiful tree, without less regard for tradition than "designer ideas". I got a full-height, but kind of slender, fake tree on clearance at the now defunct, Bradlees, for about $13 (marked down from about $35); and I chose an all-gold theme that said, "No children live here, but someone with a real eye for a professionally decorated tree does."  There year when I was expecting my first child was the year I developed pregnancy complications around Christmas and was hospitalized on New Years' Eve.  When I left the hospital with a complicated pregnancy still intact I was too worried about doing anything too strenuous, and my husband was working long hours, so I sat on the couch a lot and looked at that tree for about three weeks longer than it should have been up before deciding to dismantle it a little at a time.  It was the end of February when I was hospitalized again, and the pregnancy ended unsuccessfully.   The following year I would change the theme of the cheesy and cheap fake tree because I wouldn't want to be reminded of the previous year.

The year we adopted our son brought yet more changes to the tree because this was now "a child's tree".  No longer should it look like a "designer tree".  I went with a more traditional decorating theme.  A few years later we would bring our second son, born prematurely and requirikng extra time in the hospital, home the day before Thanksgiving.    It would be a great Christmas that year, but I was glad not to have a fatter tree to fill with decorations.  We would be having several guests for Christmas dinner that year.  There was also, of course, all the shopping.  I had a child in kindergarten and a premie to care for.  It was good to have a fake tree and not have to worry about finding and dragging home a real one, sawing it off, getting it set up in water, and watering it.   More than I had in previous years, I was actually kind of appreciating having a fake tree.

The last year that Bradlees tree would be used as the main tree was the year I was expecting my daughter.  She was due at the end of January and threatened to be born in October.  Now THAT was a Christmas for which preparations were a real challenge.   We brought our little girl home a couple of days after News Years Day, and the living room was filled with a mixture of Christmas and new-baby "atmosphere" of pink balloons, leftover hospital flowers, and whatever other pink, new-baby, items had been brought into the house.

The following year, with three children (none of whom was in the process of being expected, the process of being adopted, or the process of being a premie newborn), we got a new, artificial, tree that looked more like a tree ought to look.  "The good kind" of artificial trees were out in stores.  The days of the big, fat, branches were over.  The new trees looked more like real trees.  The children were getting bigger, after all.  There would be no more "they don't know the difference anyway."  Besides, we were a family now.  Families need "good" trees.   The Bradlees tree was relegated to the family room,  and would be given a "children's theme".  The new tree, with a traditional-yet-beautiful theme, took its place in the living room.  We weren't just a two-tree family.  We were a two-fake-tree family.   How on Earth had such a thing happened?

Through moves and changes (and general wearing out), the Bradlees tree was retired.  Over time I perfected my tree-decorating techniques, and each year I'd make slight changes or additions to earlier tree theme.  My role as "tree-putter-upper-and-decorator" was well estabished; although, of course, the children helped hang the ornaments each year (after I'd put up the tree, strung the lights, and gotten some of the other "basics" on the tree).  Any tree-putter-upper knows that hanging the ornaments is the least of anyone's problems.  

The year my mother was wheelchair bound I put up the tree in her house (one she had gotten years earlier to replace the old, long-lasting, tree she and my father had bought together).  The following year, when she died the day before Thanksgiving (Thanksgiving has certainly brought its share of life-events for me), I robotically dug out her Christmas tree, put it up, and put a single candle in her livingroom window.   Although I put up her own tree, I bought a bunch of new, meaningless, decorations because I wasn't ready to look at the ones I'd so often hung so many years before.

It had turned out that in our family, fake trees had become the tradition.  Each year there has always been the digging out of one tree or another; and as each artificial tree has been replaced somewhere along the way,  each new tree has been one with each this "tree putter-upper-and-decorator" has become intimately familiar.  One year, a few years ago, in a fleeting moment of believing it was better to have a real tree, we got a perfect real tree, believing it would be great to once again have a real tree with a real smell (especially since this particular tree was so full and perfect).  Sure, it meant feeling sad to see it out for the trash after Christmas; and, to be honest, it wasn't really my idea to give into the urge to have a tree that smells.  Still, we went with it.

It turned out the perfect tree didn't have a bit of smell. On top of it, everyone who saw it just thought it was our usual artificial tree!  In the meantime, there was the matter of watering it and needles.   Since I'm not just the "tree-putter-upper", but the "tree-taker-downer", I was careful not to just toss the tree on the ground as it waited for pick-up.  Instead, I lovingly and sentimentally leaned it against a tree out front.  Somehow that seemed kinder and more respectful than just throwing it on the side of road.

A few years ago we made the jump to a "really-top-of-the-line" fake tree; and with the benefit of decades of experience making a fake tree look really great, these days we have (I think it's safe to say) an enviably great-looking Christmas tree.  The kids are grown, so it seems kind of right that with their maturity level going up should come a Christmas tree that is equally mature in its polish, beauty, and level of inspiring awe (along with a little extra sense of magic).  It doesn't take a grand and awe-inspiring tree to make one three-year-old child feel like Christmas; but when young, single, adults arrive and say, "Now I feel like Christmas," - now THAT it is enough to make all the decades of being a "tree-putter-upper, decorator, and taker downer" worth every week's worth of plastic-pine-needle cuts in one's hands well worth it.

It turns out that digging out that fake tree every year actually can feel quite traditional to those of us who dig it out, and quite traditional to those accustomed to seeing that same tree each year.  We "tree-putter-uppers" learn that, while we are a stranger to each new, new (real or fake) tree we get, we're never strangers to an old, familiar, family tree.  Family trees (whether ancestry-related or Christmas-related) evolve.  They're not disposable.  They have a history.  It turns out, at least from what I've seen, that family trees can be about as traditional and treasured as it gets - and sometimes that's well worth the price of not having the livingroom smell like real pine.

As I sit here and think about dragging the Christmas tree out of its box in the basement, I think of how I've been putting up at least one fake Christmas tree since 1973; with the exception of that one gliche in family history when I only had to put lights on and decorate that one, smell-less, real, tree.  It's not a job I look forward to, and I really don't look forward to having my "Winter-dry" hands getting chopped to bits once again.  Still, once the tree is up each year, I can't help but feel as if it's as real as anything in this life can get.