First, some exciting news. The Divine Warriors series received a Gold Star from The Book Designer’s e-Book Cover Design Awards. It’s not the first prize, but only a few ebook covers are recognized with a Gold Star if they were considered for the award. I already knew these were great covers but it was wonderful to see the MiblArt design team, who created them, getting credit for their excellent work. The Gold Star was specifically given to book 2, Riwenne & the Bionic Witches, which is also my favorite so far. You can also see some other stunning book covers in the same competition, so go check it out!
On to today’s topic! I love decorating for the holidays. Halloween is when my family does the most decorating, but I also love Christmas and the other winter holidays. In particular, I love hanging ornaments on trees. I can’t get enough of them! So in the past few years, my family has been giving me miniature trees to have fun decorating them with different themes. We have a big main tree for our whole family to share and then I have more small ones to express myself creatively.
Our Family Tree
My family hasn’t had much space for a large tree before. In our new house, we have a vaulted ceiling so there is tons of room for a tall tree, and we had to take advantage of it. Meet our 11-foot-tall tree!
This is the one that our whole family decorates together. Each one of us has special ornaments that we like to hang. Some of them are family heirlooms that have been around for decades. I also give everyone a new ornament to commemorate the holiday season each year. Most of the ornaments are Disney. But you might also be able to spot a few others, like my rainbow winged unicorn, a pink seahorse, a crab wearing a Santa hat, and Saturn. I don’t think this picture lets you spot our tradition of hiding the pickle. Since we all take turns hiding it, I’m not sure where it is right now!
My Avent Calendar Tree
We also love to open advent calendars each year, but we’ve gotten tired of the chocolate style. My husband found the perfect calendar for me this year. It’s a miniature tree! The tree itself was actually the surprise for the first day. The snowflake lights were behind Day 24, but my husband told me to open that door second because he smartly pointed out that it’s better to put the lights on first. Then there are new ornaments every day. It’s filling up a lot now by day 16. I can’t wait to see what the final ornaments will be. Then I will have a new tree to put up every year.
Our Old Tree
Since we didn’t have a lot of space, a few years back we were actually using this mini artificial tree for our whole family. We could only put a few of our favorite ornaments on it. There are some happy memories from this tree, like the time that my husband automated a little cardboard cutout of George Clooney to pop out from behind it! (Inspired by Bill Murray’s Christmas special on Netflix.) Now that it’s not our main tree, I can use it myself. I really love blue and silver for winter holidays so I kept the tree in theme.
The tree came pre-lit but I added everything else. I love to find miniature ornaments and they’re in a ton of stores now. Good places to find mini ornaments include dollar stores, Target, Michaels, and Daiso (aka the Japanese dollar store). This tree is displayed on a shelf next to the stairs so it actually sits right above our family tree (which you might be able to see underneath).
My American Girl Doll Tree
I also like to set up scenes for my dolls and other toys. I’m still setting up the space for my doll collection so I don’t have their usual living room scene this year. So my 18″ dolls are celebrating Christmas in a camper trailer! They still have room to set up their own tree, and this year they went with red and silver ornaments. They also have their presents wrapped under the tree. I just love all the details in this miniature scene–some of the decorations I handmade myself. If you want to see more pictures, you can always check out my toy account on Instagram.
My Sailor Moon Tree
The cutest tree of all is this pink Sailor Moon tree. I was looking for a way to display all of my cute keychains and I saw someone was using them as ornaments on a mini tree! Of course, the best color to match Sailor Moon is pink. 90% of the keychains on here are Sailor Moon characters and other designs, but there’s a few others hidden in there, like other magical girls and sushi cats. It’s so sparkly and girly! This one stays in my bedroom but it has to go on a high shelf or otherwise my cat will eat it.
There are many other fun decorations in my house. I will show you my Winter Solstice altar on Saturday to kick off the holiday season. This includes my final “tree” which is actually a rosemary bush!
