i will totally admit that i get super into trends — and i want lots of things with eyes on them, for now. so i made these super easy ornaments to make our tree that much trendier. guess what else. they take like no time at all.

01. preheat the oven according to your clays directions. soften some balls of clay in your hands, and then roll them out into ovals.

02. indent the iris with something small and round.

03. carve out the shape of your eye with a toothpick, if you hate it – roll it up and start over. if it looks a little wonky, tell yourself that’s the style you’re going for.

04. poke a hole through the top with your toothpick, make sure you go through both sides.

05. bake and let cool. color in your carving.

06. tie a piece of twine and hang on your tree!

now you can say things like : eye wish you a merry christmas. or also not.

first off : longest DIY title ever.

secondly : i am so excited to show you guys our tree skirt! i know i posted last week about not being able to get a tree, but like i said, i always cave and we are totally fine with a smaller sized tree. i’ve always disliked the tree skirt we had, and decided it was time to make our own. i’ve always loved moroccan wedding blankets, but could never afford one – not to mention sequins don’t really go with our everyday decor. so i thought incorporating one into our once a year holiday decorations would mean i’d be ok with some sparkle, and i won’t get sick of looking at it.

as you guys know, i can’t sew. so i came up with the idea that i would glue everything on — it might not be the most indestructible method, but because we’ll only be using it for a few weeks a year, i thought it would hold up ok. plus it was super easy.

01. cut your base fabric down to the size you want. i wanted a hexagonal shape – so we bought a large square, and taped off the sides to create the shape i wanted. then i just trimmed inside the tape.

02. cut a seam in the middle to wrap around your tree, along with a hole in the center.

03. cut 2 – 3″ strips of the shag fabric.

04. lay out all of your pieces onto the fabric, until you’re happy with everything. i was fine with the pattern looking a little wonky because i wanted it to look handmade like a true moroccan wedding blanket. i alternated the order of the sequined trim on every other side of the shag.

05. once you’re happy with the layout, start gluing. then glue all day long. let dry, trim off the overlaps. let dry for 24 hours.

i made a bunch of mistakes along the way, i first cut the hexagon to a certain size and after laying out all of my trims, was short on sequins. so i trimmed down the edges of the base and started over. i had to re – space everything a zillion times before gluing. i was also super sloppy with cutting the shag down as you can probably see, but in the end i’m still the handmade look of it.

my best advice is to buy more of everything than you think, especially fabric glue. i used three bottles!

every year i want a tree, but i dread how big its going to feel in our tiny living room — some people in small space just don’t go for it because of that – so here’s an idea for a modern alternative that can still feel like your focal point and smell like a tree too!

and the best part, it takes less than an hour and you can hang and take down in a couple of minutes with no damage to your wall.

01. cut your dowel down into as many pieces as you want. i chose my longest size, and then cut the rest a little shorter than the previous.

02. shear your greens (we bought a rosemary tree for $7 and i ended up using all of it) start gluing the greenery to your wood. cover the stems with additional pieces, and fill in any gaps with little pieces.

03. let dry, and then attached long rolled pieces of painters tape to the backs. hang and push into the wall as hard as you can to secure.

you can obviously go way bigger if you have more greens and more wood — and make it TREE SIZED OMG! i didn’t though.