Save Your Old Tea Cups And Saucers To DIY The Most Unique Christmas Tree Decor

While home retailers and craft stores are filled with aisles and aisles of trimmings for your holiday tree each year, you may be looking for a way to make your Christmas décor stand out in a sea of sameness. This is especially true if you have a very specific aesthetic you are going with, which can often be expensive to accommodate, particularly if your tastes change from year to year. Instagram DIYer @cozy_in_georgia recently showed off an ingenious idea for beautiful, Victorian-inspired tree décor that uses readily available items to make your holiday trimmings beautiful and distinctive. By adding vintage dishes in lieu of ordinary ornaments, she creates a gorgeous and whimsical tree filled with stunning floral teacups and saucers. 

This project is a fun and festive way to repurpose old teacups. The DIYer uses a vintage collection of pieces, but you can also scout for the prettiest ones at thrift stores, garage sales, flea markets, and antique dealers. While floral dishes give a distinctive Victorian tea party vibe, you could also use Christmas-themed dishes to add a little extra holiday spirit. Perfect for creative Christmas decorations you can make with household items, these trees make a great way to show off dishes in your kitchen or dining room or make a fun, romance-inspired tree for a living room or bedroom.

This easy hanging process does no lasting damage to the dishes, unlike other projects that require a strong adhesive or carefully drilling holes through delicate porcelain. To hold the pieces aloft, she uses adhesive plate hooks, like the SNIRFAQM Mini Adhesive Vertical Plate Holders, meant to suspend decorative plates on the wall. By adding these clever hooks to the back or side of dishware, you can firmly and securely loop a ribbon or twine through to hang them on the tree. This means the dishes can easily go back to bed, functioning as regular dishes after the holidays. For cups, you can use the handles to hang or add hooks along the side. You can also reuse broken dishes or pottery fragments with pretty florals on your tree. 

Decorate your tree with pieces of vintage dishware in varying sizes and shapes, with an array of patterns for an eclectic and maximalist look. You can even add some clear glass pieces, like vintage depression glass, that will allow any added lights to shine through beautifully. Decorate your tree with plates alone, or add garland, ribbons, or small ornaments for a fuller look. Vintage silverware secured by the ends with ribbon makes cute and shiny additions. While the hooks should easily hold small pieces, like saucers, teacups, and dessert plates, you may want to add two hooks to larger plates or pieces for some extra support. Because of size, dishware pieces look best on a larger tree, but you can make a small tabletop tree beautiful by using pieces from a miniature children's tea set.

This DIY is also perfect for adding dishware pieces to garlands and wreaths. Just add the hooks and use some wire instead of ribbon to wrap around your greenery. For an adorable vintage-inspired centerpiece, use a long swag of greenery with vintage teacups embedded or attached. Or use adhesive hooks and ribbon to allow your favorite pieces to dangle at varying lengths from a fireplace mantel. You can also suspend teacups from a high place like a doorway or chandelier with a sprig of mistletoe or holly attached for a whimsical holiday décor accent. 

Create a wreath entirely from cups with no greenery at all using a plate as the center and gluing your teacups with an adhesive like E6000 around the perimeter of the plate. You could also construct an oversized wreath installation on the wall by attaching the plates directly to the wall with hooks and nails and adding sprigs of greenery and other holiday accents tucked beneath the plates in a circular formation.