The Evolution of a Ballard Inspired Ornament Tree

So this was my inspiration.

The beautiful Ballard Ornament Tree. I know, we are still in Halloween mode, but I figured it was about that time to get started on Winter Holidays.

It is available in two sizes. 41" x26" for $199 and 62" x 36" for $349.

This where I started. Please ignore the dowels. After quite a few attempts, I decided they just were not going to work for what I was trying to achieve.

What you see are 4 crimped ductboard collars (the 5th one is not in the picture) purchased at Lowes. The are sized at 4", 6", 8", 10" and 12". The five of them cost just over $30.

After failing with the dowels, I remembered I had this medal garden piece and realized it was perfect!

I literally just slid them over the top in graduated sizes and then the tension in the garden piece held them in place. If you didn't already have something like this, you could also try using a tomato plant stake. There are several varieties that would probably work well for this.

I then spray painted the garden piece and each of the collars black to replicate the Ballard piece. The finished size of my piece is about 46" x 14". I also folded down every other of the collar tab pieces to give a little more design and to hang ornaments on them.

I had been planning to do a kitchen tree this year. At Brimfield in May, I purchased a variety of smaller sized kitchen utensils to use as ornaments. I decided to try these out on my newly made tree.

After much consideration, I decided I was not sure how I felt about the black, so I decided to paint it white (of course, this was at 10:00 at night!). So here it is in white...

I also wanted to try in with some of my vintage ornaments, so I moved it into the living room and hung vintage ornaments on some pieces of white tulle ribbon.

A valuable lesson was learned. The 99 cents clearance spray paint at Michael's is not worth even 9 cents. So I am going to have to do another coat of paint. So, I need your help..

Black or white? Kitchen tree or vintage ornaments? What do you guys think?

I am posting this at the CSI Project, so go check out all the other Ballard inspired projects.