When we moved to Saipan in June, we brought six trunks of stuff with us. Things that made the bring-with-us cut? Clothes (not many, but I still wish I would’ve pared even more), Legos, a few of Piper’s dolls and purses, my sewing machine, a small bundle of fabric and a few party supplies. Nothing seasonal/Christmas-y made its way across the ocean with us.

We did inherit a fake tree, but are lacking in the décor department. Since all of my options for making Christmas ornaments are white and tan, I had my heart set on making the inherited-tree gold.

After using fifteen cans of white spray paint to make the tree white-ish/gray (good thing white spray paint is cheap), we added a couple coats of metallic gold spray paint on top.

A few tips if you’re going to spray paint a tree-

-Spray from every angle for the the best coverage. Also, turn the tree parts upside down.

-Focus your efforts on the angles that you see the most (aka- cover the tops of the bottom branches, straight on for the middle of the tree, and looking up at the top portion).

-Tape off the lights if your tree is pre-lit. Better yet, use a tree that isn’t pre-lit and forego the taping and untaping.

-Use a white tree if you can (I couldn’t get ahold of one here, but it’d skip the whole white-spray-paint step and you’d have better results).

Strung up with coral and shells, and a drift wood star, it is the perfect Christmas tree for our island home. We are definitely not finished decorating, but it’s a start.

Cheers to an extra sparkly Christmas!

ps- You could leave the tree white, or use spray paint in any color! Piper would love a pink tree (ok, so would I)… so many possibilities!