Soda Crate Holiday Decoration

Happy December all!!  A reminder to any of you with advent calendars to start opening them today!  (That was as much of a reminder for me as for you.  We'll get a week in and then remember we have it and have to catch up!)

Anyhoo...

When I was perusing Country Living's website one day, I saw a decoration where someone stacked like 5 or 6 soda crates on top of each other and then put a 4' tree on it for their porch.  Well, sadly I don't have a porch big enough for all of that.  (One day!)  I kept thinking of how much I loved the look and tried to think of how I could use it and maybe you guys could too so I came up with this.

See that sad little empty corner?  It's lonely.

I grabbed an old stool from our bedroom that is usually used for our old fashioned telephone.  (This should be of no surprise to regular readers that we have a landline.)

Originally, I bought this crate to sell but after seeing that idea, I claimed it for myself.

The grocery store was selling two kinds of greens and at $5 a bunch, I couldn't pass them up.

Make sure that the ends are freshly cut and stick them in water for a little bit or if the ends are going to be hidden, you can wrap a damp paper towel around the ends and cover it with plastic wrap to keep them fresh.

I separated all of the feathery (juniper?) stems into sizes small, medium and large and began layering them on the bottom.

Then it was time to add a little bulk with the pine tree limbs.

You always have one or two of those funky branches, don't throw them out.  Clip the greenery off of Mr. Wonky.

Use those to fill in the back to cover the crate and/or in the front so you can have some more height for the goodies you'll use.

Pine cones are free and even if you have to pay for them, they're usually 3 for $1 or something like that.  You can layer those willy nilly.

You can pop in some stems of berries (50% off at Michaels making it $2 total) and call it a day.

Or you can pop some festive Christmas bulbs in there and be done.

You can do my personal favorite and wire in some delicate vintage bulbs you might have from your parents or grandparents along with some vintage postcards you can pick up at an antique store.

Or if you have old C9 Christmas light bulbs, you can pair those with the vintage postcards for a lovely look as well.

When I asked the Mr which look was his favorite, I was crossing my fingers he was going to say all vintage ornaments but he liked the last look best.

So what look did we end up going with?

Because I thought it would be crappy of me to ask which one he liked best and veto him, I decided to compromise and use the vintage C9's with a few of my favorite vintage ornaments and call it a day.

It brings such a lovely look to that area and isn't too intrusive so you can walk through without an issue.  This would be perfect on a porch, in a living room, bedroom or if you have a big enough kitchen.  (If you do have a kitchen big enough, I secretly dislike am jealous of you.)

Just because we celebrate Christmas doesn't mean Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and all of the other holidays you may have decorations for can't get in on the act.  It's your crate, decorate how you like but just use the crate and greens as your base and go crazy with your imagination!

Linked up with Sand and Sisal, Crafty Blog Stalker, Home Stories A to Z. 

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