Last week, I shared my holiday decorating inspiration. This week, I’m showing you the tricks I used to do it and some tips on how to make it super super easy.

Now I will say, the toughest part of both the window and ornament “tree” projects was stringing the ornaments themselves, so I’ve broken it down into steps.

1. Gather Your Supplies

You’ll need:
Plastic ornaments – In order to string multiples on a single strand, you’ll need to pierce through them.
Fishing line or nylon stringing material – You can find it in the jewelry section of your local craft store.
A long straight/corsage pin – To pierce your ornaments.
A candle – To heat the straight pin because you’re not going to get the needle through the ornament without a little heat.
Wire – To make a tiny hook.
Tape – To mark where you want your next ornament to go.
C-hooks or S-hooks – If you’re doing this directly in your ceiling or window frame, use C-hooks. If you have a lighting fixture with which you can suspend your ornaments, use S-hooks.

2. Set Your Hooks

If you’re using C-hooks, just screw them into the fixture/ceiling/frame that you’re using. I did it in concentric circles, but as long as you’re happy with your shape, it should suffice.
If you’re using S-hooks, hang them from wherever you want them to hang. Again, I recommend hanging in concentric circles so you can get a nice, tiered effect.

3. Pierce the Ornaments

You’ll first need to heat your straight pin over the candle. Of course, you’ll need to be careful not to burn yourself. It is fire and a needle after all.
Once your pin is red hot, pierce the bottom/center of the ornament, just opposite of the cap. You might be able to pierce 3-4 ornaments per pin heating, so once it doesn’t go through easily, reheat.

Sometimes, the melted plastic will also come back out when you draw out the needle, which means you may need to stick the ornament again when you’re ready to string it. When you do, just let the pin stay cold.

4. String the Ornaments

This part is where it becomes a pain in the butt. I apologize in advance.
Take the cap off of the ornament.

String the nylon cord through the hole you’ve just created in the ornament and make sure to put in a decent length.
Use the wire to make a SUPER small hook.

Fish out the nylon with that hook by sticking the hook in where the cap was and swirling it around the inside of the ornament. The hook should catch the nylon, but it may take a while, so be patient. The only way you’ll really know is to pull the hook out.

Once you’ve caught the line, pull it and straighten it out.
Repeat this with each ornament that you want on that particular strand. The last ornament on a strand does not need to be strung through, just tied as an anchor.

At this point, do not tie off the top as you’ll need to make sure you have enough length to execute the placement you want.

5. Place the Ornaments

Set your ornaments at varying heights, making sure that the top ornaments of the strand create tiers. This is going to create the tree effect. I recommend starting from the center strand and moving your way outward.

What I did to make sure that I didn’t have visual gaps or holes is I hung the strand I was working on from its C-hook, slid the ornament on top to the place where I wanted it to sit, and I taped right beneath it to mark its spot. I went down the “queue” of ornaments until I’d reached the bottom.

From here, take your strand back down, tie off a small knot at the spot you’ve marked with tape, and let your ornament rest there. Once you’ve gone down the strand, bring it back to the hook and double check your placement. Tie it off based on this placement, now that you’re happy with it. This way, you don’t accidentally tie it off to long or short.

A few thoughts on placement: I placed my ornaments “randomly” (meaning that I tried to keep sections from looking too monochromatic). However, I can see stripes being lovely, and if you’re a serious over-achiever, a spiral effect would be gorgeous. The spiral effect wouldn’t even necessarily require having layers of ornaments – just the ornaments placed to indicate the “outline” of the tree.

Sit back and enjoy!

Seriously, this is a simple, albeit labor intensive project, but the effect is stunning, and it’s a fabulous conversation piece.

What fun DIY projects are you doing for the holidays?