I have to admit, this is the first time I’ve had my very OWN Christmas tree and I definitely wanted to go all out (because that’s just how I am). Since I live in Florida now, I decided it was necessary to have a coastal Christmas tree. If you know me at all, this should not surprise you by any means.
This whole coastal Christmas tree idea was sparked by the beloved “Dollar Section” in the front of Target. No matter how hard I try to walk past this section of random cheap items, I find myself getting sucked in every time. Classic case of getting distracted at Target (I seriously should not be allowed at this store unsupervised.) There are a ton of little holiday trinkets in this section right now, and I came across these cute little rope spools for $1 each. Ribbon and rope isn’t usually cheap, so I jumped on this opportunity and grabbed about $15 worth of white and natural rope spools. Besides, when was the last time you saw something in Target for $1?
I ended up with six spools of white rope and four spools of natural, and really no idea what I was going to do with them. I decided I would use the natural rope as wrap around garland since I didn’t have much, and create this neat little nautical rope garland DIY with the white rope. Disclaimer: my tree is only 6 feet tall, and if yours is bigger you’ll need significantly more rope. I barely had enough to cover my tree (learn more about Rich’s Tree Service, Inc that will be helpful to maintain them easily), and wish I had bought more. Hence why it’s better to plan ahead for how much you need, unlike I did.
To create the wrap garland for my cute little coastal Christmas tree, I took the natural rope and unrolled it from every spool. I then tied a simple box knot. To do this, start by tying the normal crisscross you would make to tie your shoe, then just do it again in the opposite direction. Boom, box knot. I then just wrapped it around my tree and let it drape and loop where it felt like it. This gave it a really natural and easy-breezy look, which is what I was going for with the “Coastal Christmas” look.
Next, time to make the white rope knot garland. I’ll be honest, my big vision for this was to wrap it all the way around the tree. But I didn’t even have close to enough to do that, so I decided to drape it vertically from the top of the tree and actually ended up loving it. Here are the step by step directions on how to make these knots. Just remember that they don’t have to be perfect and it might take you a minute to get this right at first. When creating these knots, it’s important to keep everything flat and in line. Here is the step by step process:
1. Unravel two spools of rope and lay the rope side by side. Make a P-loop.
2. Thread the rope back underneath the straight put of the P loop, sort of creating an R.
3. Thread the loop over the bottom of the P, and under the top.
4. Pull both sides of rope gently until tight.
5. Start over 6-8 inches down the line. After you make a few, you should get the hang of it. 
The final product, multiple strands of rope knot garland!
Once you have your long pieces of knot rope garland, simply tie them around the top of the tree and drape them however they like to fall. Play with the placement a little bit to make them look natural and care-free, like they just happened to fall there. Don’t worry if they don’t cover the entire length of your tree, that completes the easy breezy coastal Christmas tree look!
For the next steps in decorating your Coastal Christmas tree, check out my post about Creating a Coastal Christmas Tree! And make sure to pin the image below for reference!
xx
