Best Tips For Decorating With Faux Christmas Greens
Decorating with faux Christmas greens can be just as beautiful as real evergreens. Here are helpful tips for choosing and decorating with many different kinds of beautiful faux greens.
Oh, yuck, I thought to myself as I carried the large festive arrangement dropping needles like a flower girl as I headed toward the sink. The aroma of stinky, gross water rose up to hit my nose. I love the look of using real evergreens at Christmastime, but maybe it’s time for a change.
My Christmas Faux Green Story
I really loved using live Christmas evergreens in our home, but I really did not like changing sap-laden water, cleaning up dropping needles, and having to replace the real greens every 10 days or so.
One year I just got tired of all the work. There had to be a better way! So I went on a quest to find great faux greens that looked like the real deal! And my search paid off! It was like a Christmas miracle!
That was almost ten years ago, and faux Christmas greens and foliage have come a long way.
I’ve collected boxes and boxes of live greens over the years. And now I think of myself as a faux greenery aficionado of sorts. So today let’s chat about choosing and decorating with faux Christmas greenery!
What You Need To Know About Buying Faux Greens
When I decorate with faux Christmas greens I like to keep it simple and let the greens show off their beauty! Here are a few tips for choosing and decorating with faux Christmas greens.
Real or faux? Hard to tell! These are my go-to faux Christmas greens! I love fool-the-eye faux organics!
Here are my best tips for finding the best-looking faux greens…
- Buy the best fakes you can. I know I might get some blow-back when I say this but when you want artificial greens that look as close to the real thing as possible skip the large craft stores. They do have greens but they are usually not the best quality.
- Shop local decor shops or big flower outlets for the most realistic greens. Or shop reputable sources online.
- Shop sales! You will be amazed at all the Christmas decor already on sale now. The faux evergreen branch above was $4.90 and I got it on sale for 25% off!
- Choose sprays of greens that are real-life size. If you want your faux greens to look real, they have to be the right size.
- Think about buying a realistic garland to cut apart. You get lots of greenery for the money!
How To Make Greens Look More Realistic
- Mix different types of greens. This is HUGE! When arranging greens, make sure to mix a variety of different evergreens and other greenery together. You will be rewarded with a much more interesting and realistic arrangement. I filled the pottery lanterns with a short needle evergreen and a long needled pine.
- Add the correct pinecone with their type of evergreen sprays. It will make your arrangements look so much more authentic.
- Fluff, bend, and arrange each evergreen branch individually. Don’t just plunk faux greens in an arrangement without “arranging” them.
- The most popular types of faux greenery are… short needle evergreen, Norfolk pines, cypress, boxwood, and juniper.
Creating A Collection You Can Use For Years
- Collect faux greenery little by little. I’ve been collecting high-quality fakes for years now, and I have accumulated quite a stash. I can now decorate my home with all the greenery I have collected. It takes time to build up a great collection. Add to your collection every year!
- Choose 3 or 4 different types of greenery to collect and keep collecting just that kind. I chose a short needle: evergreen, pine, and juniper. Right now, cedar is very popular, so collect a bit. It’s so easy to mix and match them!
- Pass up any greens that you know in your heart won’t look very realistic. Be choosy!
- Don’t be afraid to cut your faux branches and greenery garlands apart. I do this all the time! I save every little piece and bit of greenery. Sometimes, all you need are a couple sprigs of some pretty greens to make something look festive!
How To Care For Artificial Greenery
- Take care of your great artificial greenery. When the season is over, swish them in warm, sudsy water, rinse them, and let them air dry. They collect dust and grime and need to be cleaned. Just make sure they are totally dry before putting them away.
- Keep faux greens out of direct sunlight. Some of them will fade.
- Straighten out the stems and branches before storing them away until next Christmas.
- Store like faux evergreens together in clear plastic boxes with tight-fitting lids. Store them in a cool, dry place.
- It’s a good idea to wear a light pair of garden gloves when working with faux greens. Like their real counterparts, they can scratch!
Other Helpful Ideas
Here are some helpful tips for using faux greens at Christmastime…
- If you like snowy Christmas greens, choose ones that have a light dusting on them. If they are heavily snow-covered they won’t look as realistic.
- Collect other add-ins. I also collect red berries, white berries, tiny stars, pinecones (you know my obsession with pinecones), antique ornaments, and more! I accent my arrangments with these items and more!
- Add other leaves in an arrangement made of faux Christmas greens. Magnolia leaves are very popular to use during the Christmas season. I have velvet-ish light green leaves that look beautiful with faux greens!
- String lights in your greens for a magical look. Just make sure the cords are green to work with your evergreens.
- Tuck sprigs of Christmas greens around other Christmas decor.
Decorating with real greenery is quintessentially Christmas! But if you are like me and tired of the mess they made then you might want to think about switching to fabulous faux! If you do… you won’t go back!
More Christmas Posts
USE WHAT YOU HAVE CHRISTMAS ARRANGEMENT
THE EASIEST CHRISTMAS ARRANGEMENT YOU WILL EVER MAKE!
HOW TO UPDATE AN OLD CHRISTMAS WREATH
Faux Greens
I think I’ve asked this question before but forgot your answer! Do you disassemble everything when you put your greens away, eg your garland? I’ve started doing that because I’ll use the greens in other arrangements throughout the year (eucalyptus looks good in almost every season) or based on your blog, I’ll make some tweaks to arrangements based on your advice (going to look for cedar now). If the arrangement was complicated and I have a place to store it as is, I’ll keep it together. I arranged one of those jars with the snow and log cabin, lights, trees, etc. I had intended to break it apart afterwards, but now it’s just stored as is, with my Christmas stuff. I put it on the ledge around the bathtub and it’s a nice cozy diorama for reading in the tub! I was in a boutique on Saturday and they had lovely stems, but yikes, they were expensive! But, I want them!
I think you should do whatever works for you. I change things every year, so I like to break things down.
I so agree with your suggestions to mix the winter greens and also to include other types of greenery and leaves. Last year I found that by including faux English ivy in my winter arrangements, I came up with a very Victorian “winter-in-old-England” look that I loved after several decades of thinking faux ivy was totally out of favor.
Sound so pretty Teddee!