We moved into our current house in 2014, and while looking for homes, I would always evaluate each house as to whether or not it would be fun to decorate for Christmas.
My then 4-year-old knew me so well…he even called me on it while we were house hunting. He saw me gazing off at something inside one of the houses we were touring and he said, “Mom, you’re thinking about how you’d decorate this house for Christmas aren’t you?” Yep – I was!
The house we ended up purchasing has a living room right next to the family room, so we use the living room as the kids play room instead of a more formal area. I decided to put a tree in the playroom, it was my original tree that I started collecting my red and gold ornaments with more than 20 years ago.
It’s only 6-foot tall, but it’s a great little tree. I didn’t really have anything to go on it, but I pulled some stuff together and it looked beautiful the first few years we were in this home. During that time, it was decorated very elegantly. I decided very soon that we needed to do something fun that went along better with the playroom where it was displayed.
When we originally selected a theme for the playroom itself, I picked robots. I saw an article about a piece of artwork that was in the background on the Big Bang Theory, and the art made me laugh. I ordered a print of the piece, Robots Caught Again Lineup and looked into the artist more.
His name was Eric Joyner, and his paintings were very realistic, super colorful and had some whimsey. I fell in love with them.
He paints mostly vintage robots in funny or unexpected situations. He also sometimes paints them with baked goods like donuts or cupcakes. So fun! I picked out a couple of pieces to hang in my oldest son’s room and the newly decorated playroom.
Pottery Barn Kids also had some styling in their catalog with vintage tin robots and spaceships that went along with this theme and helped with my inspiration. So, of course, the playroom’s tree needed to be robots! I had some trouble finding robot ornaments so it evolved into a robot, spaceship, space, vintage toy, donut and cupcake tree!
Now, I know that sounds like a lot – but it all works together, especially when brought together by the Joyner inspiration pieces.
The first year I only found a few robot ornaments, but what I found were adorable. Some were from Michael’s and Hobby Lobby, but mostly I sourced these ornaments from Amazon.
I also wanted to add something whimsical so I found this cute candy garland. I loved that it looked like glass, so it shines in the light! It’s a bit difficult to hang and make look good, but worth the effort!
I also added some peppermint candy lights. These are just red LED lights with a plastic peppermint candy cover over them, but gives off a great red glow.
Over the past three years, I’ve been able to find more robots and spaceship-themed ornaments…and they are just the cutest ornaments! I love that this tree was inspired by my boys. I love all the color and silliness of Santa and snowman in spaceships or as robots.
This year this tree got upgraded to one of my full size trees and it’s even more beautiful. Christmas Gal Maureen sent me the link for the Santa in a plane that circles the tree and I knew it would be perfect on this tree!
Because there’s more space on a big tree I needed something else to help fill it in. This year, I found several cute donut and cupcake ornaments while out and about, and thought those would be the perfect addition to this tree!
They just add more fun to the tree and goes perfectly with the art that is already in the playroom.
I found the cute rainbow donuts at Target, white frosted ones at Five Below for only $1 each and a few others at Hobby Lobby and JoAnns! Bought with coupons or on 50% off day, of course!
Here’s a link to learn a little more about the artist that inspired this whimsical and fun tree.
