Take inspiration from our themed trees embellished with garlands, ornaments, and tree toppers.

Up the elegance of this year's evergreen with beautiful celestial symbols. Delicate silvery angels flit among hand-tied ribbon stars.

Instead of store-bought trimmings, dress your tree with what it might have worn outside -- pinecones.

Forget the electric lights, make your room shine with an aluminum tree filled with removable branches and a central trunk. Decorate with balls and swags in one or two colors. 

There's no such thing as too many holiday treats. Made from wrapping paper, these simple containers can hang from a Christmas-tree form (like the one at left), holding candy or very small presents.

Colorful ornaments stand out against the dense branches of a Nordmann fir. This one has a vintage tree fence and a mound of fake snow at its base. The decorations include popcorn garlands, popcorn balls, and layered felt animals.

Japanese-lantern ornaments provide a pleasing change of scale on this artificial bonsai, but the crowning glories of this tree are the birds -- coated in glitter and grouped in flocks of like colors.

These handmade ornaments look good enough to eat.

Use snow-in-a-can or even flour to create a beautiful dusting of "snow" on your tree.

An entire village of gingerbread houses adorns this tree, creating tempting trimmings. The windows and doors have been crafted from dough that is different from the facades -- the lighter one is sweetened with honey, the darker with molasses -- to provide contrast.

Consider a monochromatic scheme. For this tree, we used only red and white ornaments to create a festive display.

With its boughs pruned, this Norway spruce can accommodate twice as many ornaments. Ribbon attached to wire lets ornaments hang securely from branches while unifying the color scheme.

In both Ukrainian and German lore, the tale of the Christmas spider explains the origin of tinsel. The story tells of a poor widow who couldn't buy fancy gifts for her children or decorations for their tree. One Christmas Eve, she decorated a tree as best she could with fruits and nuts. After she went to sleep, spiders came out and crawled over the tree, leaving their webs behind. When Father Christmas visited the house, he saw the web-covered tree and decided to turn the webs to silver. In the morning when the family awoke, the tree was sparkling and beautiful.

Kids undecorate this tree! The ornaments are gifts in ribbon pouches, one to open each day starting December 1.

In Poland, where the Christmas season is seen as a time of renewal, ornaments are fashioned from straw to symbolize thanksgiving for the harvest and hope for good things in the coming year. Eggs represent the promise of future prosperity, too.

Create an entire village of shimmering houses and churches in the boughs of your tree, nestling them among glittering balls and baubles.

According to the legend of the Christmas rose, a poor shepherdess named Madelon was tending her sheep on a hill near Bethlehem one snowy night when she saw the wise men bearing gifts on their way to visit the Christ child. Madelon wept, knowing that she could not afford a present for the new king. Just then an angel appeared and turned the girl's fallen tears into pale pink roses. A joyous Madelon gathered the blooms and carried them to Bethlehem to give to the baby Jesus. Since that time, the Christmas rose (in fact not a rose at all but a hellebore) blooms each December as a reminder of this loving gift.

Although there is no widespread Christmas tradition in Japan, people have learned a lesson of peace and goodwill from Sadako, a little girl who developed leukemia after the 1945 Hiroshima bombing. She learned of a legend that said if a person folded 1,000 paper cranes, the gods might grant his or her wish to become well. Although Sadako never reached her goal, after her death her classmates folded enough cranes to make up the difference. Since then, people all over the world have sent folded cranes to Hiroshima.

Using a few readily available materials, you can make ornaments that will become treasured heirlooms even before they've spent a season on the tree: Shape wired tinsel into sparkling stars, beads into snowflakes, and sumptuous fabrics into small decorative globes. Even humble materials like buttons and wood can be transformed into distinctive decorations. The finished ornaments may be hung from the tree, used to embellish packages, or given as gifts. Wherever they end up, they will surely become Christmas keepsakes for family, friends, and yourself.

A pyramid of dried pinecones dressed with silver spray paint conceals the tree stand of this Fraser fir.

Sheets of foil are twisted and scrunched into stars, balls, and canes, all hung with yarn. Turn cupcake liners inside out; stack, and then glue back-to-back; tie on yarn to hang. Poke string lights through small liners for a radiant glow.

A far cry from Charlie Brown's sad sapling, this snow-white tree is meant to be trim. The original base was replaced with a shapely, sand-filled lacquer vase; the homemade 3-D ornaments are made from bits of fabric stitched together and stuffed with quilt batting.

Back when the lights on Christmas trees were candle flames, bobeches formed protective collars to catch dripping wax. After electric bulbs replaced wicks and flames, the embellishments took on a purely ornamental role as pretty reflectors of light -- until they passed out of fashion in the 1970s. You can re-create this old-fashioned sparkle by slipping homemade poinsettia bobeches over strings of lights.

Get the look with a Martha Stewart Living Pre-Lit Holiday Poinsettia Spruce Tree at the Home Depot.

Order a Martha Stewart Living Poinsettia Spruce Tree

A Christmas tree dusted with snow looks even frostier when decorated exclusively in shades of silver, white, and cream. Simple paper-and-glitter ornaments mix well with vintage metallic pieces. Glitter ornaments are easy to make and can be saved from year to year.

This is the perfect tree for gardeners. We turned vintage seed packets into templates you can download; print on card stock, and cut out with scissors.

Pom-poms, tassels, and snowflakes made of vibrant yarn create a cozy, crafty theme for a tree. A sewing basket is a fitting container (the tree sits in a separate pot surrounded by gravel); the gifts are wound with yarn.

Curious little hands can't help but be drawn to the irresistible magic of a Christmas tree. With an unbreakable tree, you can let them explore without worry. Nylon threads provide invisible support for a small tree, which is decorated entirely with easy-to make, kid-proof ornaments.

With a few bags of cotton balls, you can blanket a tree with the softest snow.

Office-supply stores have all the trimmings for a tree that belies its workaday origins. Key tags decorated with stickers, ornaments cut from file folders, and paper-clip chains dangle from the branches. A bubble-packaging tree skirt and presents dressed up in graph paper, stickers, and rubber bands circle the base.

With its pipe-cleaner candles, this small fir recalls a time when Christmas trees were brightened with flame.

An assortment of colorful candy holders and basket ornaments creates a striking effect against a white tree.

Channeling childhood summers spent on Cape Cod, crafts director Hannah Milman created a from-the-sea tree. These shell ornaments are dusted with two shades of glitter and blended for a dazzling ombre effect.

These stockings are just large enough to hold a small gift or sweet for each of the 24 days of Advent.

A tree covered in candy. Is there a child anywhere who could imagine a happier sight? Although the sweet beasts and baubles on the tree are not intended to be eaten, their components are delectable.

Conceal a Christmas tree stand with a lovely scalloped tree skirt. The skirt is made of felt, which won't fray, and has one open seam, so refilling the stand with water is a snap.