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Christmas Tree Decorating -- Circus Theme Tree
Rate it! Votes (1) | Comments (0) By Cheri Sicard Photos: Mitch Mandell Posted October 26th, 2008	6.5' Pre-Lit Fiber Optic Noble Fir Artificial Christmas Tree #H80901

Many readers of this website may not know it, but I actually grew up in and around the circus.  As an adult, I pursued a career in circus and variety arts for many years -- over the years performing as a clown, magician, mentalist, knife thrower and whip cracker.

People in such professions tend, over the years, to collect (accumulate) a lot of tchotchkes, whether they want to or not.  In order to curb the flood of well intentioned albeit ill designed clown themed gifts coming my way, I long ago designated any circus themed items be strictly confined to the realm of Christmas ornaments.

And so it came to be that I have accumulated a rather large collection of circus themed ornaments.  I confess, I got into the spirit of the circus tree along the way and frequently buy circus ornaments myself too.  Would-be ornament collector's will find a wide variety to choose from within this genre, from clowns, acrobats and animals, to series from Circue du Soleil, Ringling Brothers, Studio 56, and Christopher Radko among others.

With so many great ornaments, it was high time for me to design a theme tree around them.

To give the tree the feel of a big top tent, I used ribbons floating vertically down the entire length.  While the circus theme can lend itself to lots of wild colors, I opted for a more classic red and gold .  This was largely because I had a lot of it on hand, which is the same reason a lot of circus tents end up the colors they are -- the tentmaker had a lot hand and gave the show owner a good deal.

To attach the ribbons, I took a cue from circus tents and attached the ribbons to a center bale ring.  In my case, I just used a hot glue gun to attach lengths of ribbons to a ring I bought at a craft store.  After gluing it together, I rolled up each length of ribbon to make them easier to handle and secured each with a rubber band.  This made it much easier to pick up the thing and fit it over the top of the tree.  I then uncurled and placed each length of ribbon more or less evenly aounrd the tree.

The clown hat tree topper seemed a natural.  Sticking with the red and gold theme I found some paper.  You could use any kind of paper -- patterned scrapbook paper, heavy gift wrap paper, card stock, etc.  For this tree I got the paper from a book of wallpaper samples.  Go to most any paint or home improvement store and you'll find that they're usually thrilled to give away old sample books of wallpaper.  That's right, give them away, as in for free, gratis, nada.  This represents an incredible find for creative crafters -- free supplies!   The sample books provide wonderful papers for all kinds of craft projects, and once you start flipping through the pages, you'll come up with all kinds of uses for the various designs.

To make the hat, form your paper of choice into a cone and use the hot glue gun to glue into place.  For the trim and top pom-pom I used some gold glitter garland I had bought at an after Christmas sale the year before.  When you're finished, sit the hat on top of the tree, covering the ring with the ribbons.

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