At my house, I’ve got two trees – one that’s pretty traditional (your basic bulbs, lights… you know the drill) and one that features all the handmade ornaments I’ve collected over the years from friends and favorite crafters. Just like last year both trees went up right away and so far, knock on wood, haven’t been attacked by my overweight cat. But unlike last year, I got asked to help my boyfriend decorate his very first tree in his new house. The supplies he had from previous holidays was pretty minimal – some silver garland left over from a New Year’s Eve party and a small table-top tree that no longer lights up. We decided to use this blank canvas as a way to review Martha Stewart’s new line of holiday decorations at Home Depot.
As some of you might know, Martha Stewart had a line of well-priced holiday decorations at Kmart and a slightly more expensive line at Macy’s. The Kmart line is no more, much to many of my friends’ disappointment, having been moved over to Home Depot. We decided to use the weekend before Christmas to check out the decorations and decorate our tree. Armed with a gift card from the store, we decided to see how far $50 could get us in making this first tree in a new house memorable.
Overall, the selection was much smaller compared to Martha’s previous lines. (Granted, I’ve heard some friends say that they had a hard time finding the full line at stores near them, so perhaps we missed the whole lineup in person.) There are artificial trees and outdoor decorations to choose from that looked nice. The ornaments we found were all shatter-resistant (good for folks with pets or small children), but there weren’t that many styles to choose from. We picked a big barrel of red-and-white bulbs as well as some glittery floral picks to add to the top of the tree. We were set with lights, so we didn’t need any of those, but there were a few different styles to choose from.
Beyond the tree, we picked up two cute candy cane-inspired stockings, a nice doormat for the front door as well as pre-lit wreath. We went over our $50 budget by about $18. Luckily many of the items we selected were on sale.
We have a fairly large tree, so the barrel of 101 ornaments was good to have. The picks were a little lost in the branches, so a little manipulating with their shapes and they started to stand out a bit more. We added some handmade paper ornaments (made with Martha Stewart paper, of course) to the tree to fill in the holes.
Here’s how everything turned out:
All in all, not bad. I think our tree looks pretty nice (we added some basic ribbon later on as you’ll see in the night shot below), and the additional decorations we picked up for the house are a nice touch. I really miss the variety, from themes to glass bulbs vs. shatter resistant, that the previous Martha Stewart lines offered, but for some basic pieces during the holiday season, or simply adding to some of your favorite decorations you’ve had over the years, the new line does the job.
You can learn more about the line here.
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