boho foraged dried floral Christmas tree
Today I’m participating in one of my favorite holiday blog hops. I’m sharing my DIY dried floral tree with you which is similar to my pampas grass Christmas tree from last year. I also want to make sure that you check out all the other fabulous trees all week. You won’t regret it and will find lots of inspiration.
This blog hop is hosted by my friend Stephanie of Casa Watkins Living. She has such a beautiful unique style and I always love seeing her colorful global spin on design. Her home is gorgeous.
Also welcome to everyone coming from my friend Amy’s of Delineate Your Dwelling with an equally beautiful home and the most amazing crafting ideas.
boho foraged dried floral Christmas tree
This post may contain affiliate links from which I will earn a commission at no extra cost to you. View my full disclosure policy.
This tree is definitely one of the cheapest trees I have ever made. Who doesn’t love that? I know you aren’t all as lucky as I am to find your materials out in nature though.
Materials used to make this unique Christmas tree
- different grasses (examples HERE, HERE and HERE)
- dried thistles
- dried flowers
- fairy lights
- crafting feathers (optional)
- floral foam bricks
- large plant stake (3ft or 6ft)
- flower cage plant support
Other dried florals you could consider adding are chrysanthemums, eucalyptus, yarrow, pine cones, baby’s breath, lavender, and hydrangeas. Or you could buy one of those dried flower arrangements that you can find everywhere now and take them apart and reuse the dried cut flowers.
The simplest way and best time to find these already dried grasses and flowers are late October and all of November. In our area, December has been too late since heavy snow can ruin them. Thankfully I can find plenty of them along the river where I live.
Or you can pick flowers during the summer and hang them upside down in a dry and dark place. The grasses need to bloom mostly during fall first and can’t be picked early.
If you can’t forage in your own garden or on nature walks for all the items as I did then you can (of course) buy them all online but that’s when it gets pricey.
How I made the dried floral Christmas tree
As I mentioned above already, the concept is the same as my pampas grass Christmas tree tutorial from last year and I added the video below. Use the triangle on the image to view the video and if that doesn’t load then you can also watch it on my YouTube channel.
dried grass color variation tip:
You might be wondering why last year’s pampas grass Christmas tree is so much lighter than this year’s dried floral Christmas tree even though I used the same dried grass from the same area for the base shape. The reason for that is that I cut the plants down a lot sooner than last year.
In the photo below you can see that the stems were still green when I cut them down in late October right before Halloween. The plums still had a lot of seeds in them which makes them look very brown and dark. Last year’s plums were cut down at the beginning of December right before it started to snow and all the seeds were. They were lighter in color and fluffy. So if you want to make your own that’s definitely something to consider when you decide what look you are going for. I didn’t want them both to look the same. Plus I didn’t want to wait until December this year.
What I did differently
The differences are all the added grasses and dried florals found and that I used floral blocks this time because large cones are too expensive and also not needed. I simply used a large plant stake and poked that through 5 floral foam bricks. I measured first of course to see how many I’d need.
I used a bread knife to cut and shape the top of the last brick into a pointy shape.
For the base, I used a flower cage which I had on hand because we use those in the summer outside every year. It was perfect for the base but you could probably use something else as well. You can see the contraption below before I started poking the dried flowers and grasses into the blocks.
I stripped the leaves off of the grass stems and then started building the Christmas tree from top to bottom by inserting the stems into the blocks. After that, I filled everything in with the other dried grasses and dried flowers like the thistles (wear gloves).
Lastly, I added fairy lights again because they are much lighter than standard Christmas light strands and also have less visible cords. I like using them so much better and wrote a blog post about holiday magic with plug-in Christmas tree fairy lights to show you how I use them in our house. Another bonus is that you don’t have to nonstop struggle with burnt-out light bulbs. I can’t stand that about traditional Christmas light strands and I’m sure that I’m not the only one, right?
Don’t forget to add the hairspray at the end as I did in my video tutorial.
Finished foraged dried floral Christmas tree
I’d like to possibly still add some golden or rust-colored Christmas ornaments but am still trying to figure out how to attach them the best way because you definitely can’t hang them off the branches. Even if that doesn’t work out, I absolutely love how the tree turned out. It’s so unique and I only had to pay for the cheap floral foam bricks. There is definitely no need to add beautiful ornaments because the dried greenery speaks for itself.
When the fairy lights are off you can see the different dried flowers better and the lighting wires are a bit visible as well. You can now see that they look much prettier than standard Christmas lights. You couldn’t achieve this look with standard light strands!
In case you are wondering, the brass pot is one of my all-time favorite Goodwill finds and fits the tree perfectly.
I mentioned that mine was almost free. The only thing I had to purchase were the foam blocks. Some of you might not be into DIYing your own things and would rather purchase the items.
Last year there wasn’t anything for sale like this and I received several requests for making and selling these types of Christmas trees. To be honest I have no idea how one would even go about shipping such a tree but apparently, it is doable because I found several similar ones for sale online this year but they sure are pricey and you can check them out below. The small images are linked.
Can you believe the larger one with the dark planter is about $900 and is about the size of mine?!?! I guess I should say was because it’s sold out, so apparently, people have the money to drop that kind of cash on a tree that can be made for next to nothing. Crazy right?
Below are two more photos with more of the room in them. I’m still playing around with pillows as you can see and actually just ordered some new ones that didn’t arrive yet. Yesterday I also removed the second layered rug to see what it would look like.
I also had my eye on a different mirror but not sure if I should pull the trigger.
If you like dried florals and grasses then you might also like my DIY boho ornaments where I used glass ball ornaments and different dried grasses.
I hope you enjoyed my boho DIY foraged dried floral Christmas tree. Stay tuned for more of my Christmas ideas and decor this year which I can’t wait to share with you. My mantel and big real Christmas tree are coming soon hopefully. I didn’t have time for those yet since I just came back from Germany where I visited my family which I hadn’t seen in 2 years. It was a very special and emotional trip.
Check out my favorite faux Christmas trees if you don’t want to make your own.
Next up on the list of trees to check out is Jenna of Room Bloom Design. Her style is so fun, unique, and colorful.
Below are all the rest of the blogs participating this week for you to check out. Enjoy!
Monday
Casa Watkins Living // Up To Date Interiors // Mocha Girl Place
Kate Decorates // House of Hipsters // Monica Wants It
Tuesday
The Happy Housie // SKG Designs // Delineate Your Dwelling
Cuckoo 4 Design // Room Bloom Design // My Sweet Savannah
Wednesday
Iris Nacole // PMQ For Two // Stacies Spaces
Rebecca Propes // Liz Morrow Studios
Thursday
Au Petite Salon // Taryn Whiteaker Designs // The Honeycomb Home
Daly Digs // T Moore Home // Love Your Abode
Friday
Haneen’s Haven // Our Fifth House // Seeking Lavender Lane
Two Twenty One // Amber Oliver // Zig and Company
Merry Christmas and have an all-around wonderful holiday season,
Julia stoooooooop this is gorgeous!!!! I adore how you made this tree look natural and stylish from foraged items!!! So beautiful!
Thank you, Stephanie! And thanks for doing all the work to host the blog hop.
Wow!!!
Thanks Sarah!
Julia, this is absolutely stunning! Wow!
Thank you Lori!
This is brilliant, it came out beautiful!
Thanks Roxanne!
This is gorgeous! Absolutely love it!
Thank you, Danielle. Hope you are well!
I absolutely love this. I especially like how it looks fantastic both with and without the lights. The colors, the textures….so fabulous. I want to reach out and touch it! Wonderful job.
Thank you so much Kristin. I love touching it 😉
Beautiful! You are so talented!
Thanks so much Mary. You are always so sweet.
Your tree is so pretty and whimsical yet soft! Love it, Julia!
Thanks Cassie. I love finding things on my walks.
LITERALLY MY FAVORITE TREE! You blew it out of the park on this one, great job!
Oh, thank you so much, Melaine. I really appreciate the compliment.
Beautiful but I can’t believe your cats leave the feathers alone? The one time I had feather decorations for the holidays mine disassembled them overnight. lol
I caught Walter twice batting some grass pieces around 🙂 The odd thing is that he only cared about the feathers when I just brought them home. I had them in a vase on my desk and he stopped being interested after a while. The other two could care less. I think it helps that they have their catio and can play with other stuff out there.
You must have better behaved cats then mine. lol Mine have a huge screen room and plenty of toys yet must kill feathers.
LOL! I’ve heard that from a couple of people. I have caught my Walter batting a couple of grasses around a couple of times. When I found the feathers and put them on my desk in a small vase he was all over them. Now he’s not all that interested anymore 😉 The other two are well-behaved and could care less.
Why didn’t you make one for me? *g*
Really love that tree, Julia. Fabulous!
Haha! Thanks 😉
It’s so gorgeous Julia! And it just glows with the lights.
Thanks Kathy! It turned out a bit darker than I had hoped but the lights definitely help.
Once again, you come up with a way to reinvent Christmas decor – and nail it! I love, love, love this idea!
Thanks so much for the sweet compliment Nancy 🙂
This turned out so beautifully! I love the movement and earthy tones, just lovely!
Thank you so very much Ginny.
This is incredibly beautiful! You are so creative and the composition is fantastic.
Unfortunately, the foraged feathers might get you into trouble, depending on the species, as allmost all native North American birds fall under the (U.S.) North American Migratory Bird Act. I would add some kind of warnig about that to the post, or just suggest buying legal feathers to be on the safe side. I think this post is a good first read to get an overview: https://www.featherfolio.com/blog/guide-to-legal-and-illegal-feathers-in-the-usa
Hmmm interesting. I had no idea. I didn’t buy them or am going to sell them. They are feathers I found on my walks on the ground and I would never kill a bird (I hunting) for its feathers. Thanks so much for the info.