They call her the Tree Whisperer.
“The tree talks to me,” said Newmarket resident Leslie Mead whose innate creativity and passion for the Christmas season are the magic behind the unique Christmas trees she creates to emulate the festive spirit of the household.
“I have always been a Christmas person,” she said. “And I’ve always been drawn to unusual things.”
The proof of that lies in the 35 bins filled with Christmas baubles that are carefully labelled and stacked in four closets in her home.
When you see a tree decorated by Mead, you’ll notice immediately there is no traditional star or angel adorning the top.
Instead, there’s an extravagant spray of branches, greenery and decorations.
“Your tree topper is your statement,” she said. “It’s almost like a crown.”
While the owner of Mead Style and Staging has been turning heads with her Christmas trees for years, a recent career change is allowing her to focus on her decorating and staging business.
Several of her Christmas trees were featured in last month’s Pickering College Home Tour, with one in particular — featuring 50 real red roses, dogwood branches and feathers — garnering rave reviews.
“I get so many people saying to me ‘you don’t see trees like this anywhere’,” Mead acknowledged.
The magic begins by her selection of a theme, which will be consistent in the rooms throughout the house.
The first step, whether decorating a room or a tree, is to lay out all the decorations and decor on the floor.
She doesn’t require her clients to make any new purchases, but prefers to use the items they have, adding touches of nature that she finds foraging the property.
Incorporate Christmas into your year-round decor, she advises, adding with a grin that not everybody has 35 bins full of Christmas decorations at hand.
In her own home this year, she chose a “woodland” theme, which includes elements of nature and rustic decorations, beginning first with the tree topper.
She creates elevation by placing the Christmas tree on a skid, then covers it with a luxurious sheepskin blanket.
Perched on a ladder, she starts at the middle of the tree top, adding items and building it out in layers on all four sides.
Next, she adds ribbons, starting under the tree topper, and pushing them back toward the trunk in curls and waves as they cascade down the length of the tree.
This year, she’s using rustic-looking burlap ribbon for the woodland theme.
“Have some fun with it,” is her mantra, but she agrees getting the ribbon just right can be a challenge.
Then she adds the decorations, moving down the tree — like ombre for your tree, she added with a laugh.
She follows the decorator’s rule of three, layering baubles and balls in groups of three to create interest, and ensures decorations and ribbons are pushed back toward the trunk of the tree.
“Especially if you have little kids, they can look and see that there are things right at the trunk of the tree,” she said. “Yes, it’s different, but it brings your eyes into the tree.”
“You want to see bits and pieces of your branches,” Mead said. “Often people will hang one decoration on each branch, but you can layer, you keep the interest going, and push everything to the back of the tree.”
Using decorations like grapevine balls, birch bark, large pine cones and holly balls, and other items that you wouldn’t typically consider as tree ornaments, makes the abundance work.
Add some colour, “a little punch of something,” she advises.
It takes her about three hours to decorate a large tree, climbing up and down the ladder initially, and looking at the tree with a critical eye, adding and continuing to layer decorations.
She then adds a string of lights — like many of us with pre-lit trees, some of the branches are no longer lit at all — but doesn’t overdo it.
For safety and stability, she adds a string or wire from the upper portion of the tree to a removeable 3M hook on the wall behind.
Finally, she likes to add a simple vignette — “a little forest” — beside her Christmas tree, using a small artificial tree in a tall urn, and fresh greenery that scents the room.
An old wooden box or apple basket works, too, she added, if you don’t have an urn.
Touches of the woodland Christmas theme have been added throughout her home: a bright cranberry wreath on a white kitchen wall, birch bark and greenery on a bookshelf and trailing branches on the dining table light fixture.
Rather than decorate the bannister, a swag of greenery adorned with twinkling fairy lights cascades from the newel post on the top floor to the lower level.
She doesn’t change the decor of a room, but builds on it with festive touches.
In her living room, for instance, she has built on the “moose” theme already present, using fresh green branches and the whimsy of Christmas moose figurines on the mantelpiece.
She laughs indulgently when you marvel at how, somehow, the unusual elements and simplistic extravagance work to create a magical Christmas decor.
Mead, a certified stager, said she has always had a knack for decorating, decor and styling, and she had early exposure to staging while accompanying her father on advertising shoots as a child.
One of her goals is to see her trees in Hallmark Christmas movies.
She charges $50 an hour, or a flat rate.
And stay tuned, while Christmas has always been the focus of her decorating passion, Halloween follows it closely.
You can reach her at [email protected], or call 905-713-6162.
