Usually I share projects that require some skill, time or money, but today I am going to share the easiest Christmas chair decor project! I don’t know about you, but if I can find something inexpensive and upcycle it – I could not be happier!!!
Chair Wreath Alternative
I am sure you have seen many people hanging wreaths on the back of their chairs and they do look adorable. I usually have wreaths on the back of my chairs at Christmas as seen in the photo below.
This year, however, I wanted to do something different. I found these adorable Christmas trees with bells hanging from them. Not sure what they were supposed to be – maybe an ornament to hang in your Christmas tree, but I thought they would be the perfect replacement for the chair wreath.
There are two parts to this blog – the first part is if you can find this item at the Dollarama or your local dollar store, then that’s great and I will show you how to tweak it just a bit. Now, if you cannot find it, I will show you how to make it.
So this is the item as I found it at the dollar store.
Materials
The materials you will need for this project are:
- Ornament to replace a wreath
- 3/8″ wide ribbon
- Wire and wire cutters
- Scissors
- Glue gun and glue sticks
I have linked some products in case you would like to purchase them. If you do decide to do so, I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Deconstruction
I loved the ribbon I had which would hold the ornament on the chair and I felt that having two different ribbons on such a small piece of decor was too much – at least it was for me. So that required me to remove the ribbon. I found that it was all wired on so the removal was quite easy. Here is a picture of it deconstructed.
Attaching the evergreen and pinecone
I did like the evergreen piece and pine cone so I decided to put it back where it originally was just without the ribbon. The wire was too small from being cut so I cut a piece of wire and wrapped it tightly under the pine cone.
I then placed it back in it’s original spot.
I wrapped one piece of the wire over top of the base of the tree and the other under.
Twist the ends together tightly.
Attaching ribbon
Isn’t this ribbon lovely? Not too much going on but just enough to say it is Christmas. Here is a link if you are interested.
The next step is to determine how far down the back of your chair that you want the ornament to sit. Measure the distance from the top of the chair to the top of where you want the tree to sit. For me, I only allowed about 1/4 inch from the top of the tree to the bottom of the chair backing as I wanted it pretty snug. The bells hang down quite low and I wanted it all visible. Now add 8 inches to that number and double it. This will allow enough ribbon to tie a bow. Loop the ribbon through the top of the tree and hang it from the back of the chair. One piece of the ribbon will go on one side of the chair (ie where your back will be when sitting in the chair) and one will go on the front. Tie a neat bow and voila you are done!
In the above picture I have the bow on top of the chair. In the picture below, I have it along the back about 3/4 inch down from the top. Play around with it and see what you enjoy more or maybe change it every so often.
If you couldn’t find the tree ornament, do not fear, I will teach you how to make it.
The first thing you will need to do is choose your shape. Because I had the dollar store version to copy, I chose to stick with a tree but the options are endless – star, reindeer, sleigh, candy cane, etc. Can you imagine how cute some of those would be?
You will need some sort of drawing or possibly a cookie cutter to follow. I followed the ornament I had, but I also tried wrapping the wire around a cookie cutter and found that worked too.
Materials
The materials you will need are:
- 18 gauge wire
- Jute twine – 4 ply thickness
- 5 bells
- 3/8″ wide ribbon
- Small piece of faux evergreen
- Pinecone
- Small pliers
- Wire cutters
- Scissors
- Glue gun and glue sticks
Bending the wire
18 gauge wire is quite pliable so it was easy to bend and follow the shape. Wherever there was a bend to be made, I held it in that spot with the pliers and bent the wire to follow the rest of the shape. At the end, I twisted the wire together, trimmed off the excess wire and then used a 24 gauge wire to secure it.
The twine I had was quite thick. I tried a thinner twine and it was far too small and did not look good. Here is a link for the jute twine (4 ply).
Attaching the twine
Take a piece of tape to secure the end of the twine and wrap it around the wire to secure it in place to start. Then start wrapping the twine around the wire. Make sure to always keep the twine very close together. Do not let it get loose or spaced out.
Continue to wrap around the shape until you get to where you started.
Where the two pieces meet, place a dab of hot glue on the wire and then wrap the twine into it, pressing firmly.
I placed quite a bit of glue and wrapped the twine around all of the glue and then trimmed off the ends.
Adding twine for the bells
Measure 3 pieces of twine in the following lengths: 17 inches, 13 inches and 5 inches.
Loop them over the base of the tree and make sure that each piece of twine ends at a different length. So you should have 5 ends all spaced out evenly. If this doesn’t make sense refer back to the dollar store ornament and see how the bells are all staggered in length.
Once you have them evenly spaced out, lift the top layer and spread on hot glue and then place the twine back into the glue and press down to secure.
Attaching the bells
Next, it is time to secure the bells by gluing them to the ends of the twine.
To attach the evergreen piece and the ribbon to secure it to the chair, please refer back up to the sections “Attaching evergreen and pinecone” and “Attaching ribbon”.
Taa-daa – how cute are these?
I love that they are something different. I am all about changing stuff up, experimenting and seeing if I can improve on tried and true decor.
I think these tree ornaments are fresh and fun. I hope you enjoy them too!
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If you are new to my blog, please check out my front door wreath alternative or my winter scene on a mirror project!
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What do you think?