Lights, Lights, Lights!

Well, being winter, it gets dark early. Here it is, not even 6, and I have been out to photograph my Christmas Lights. I love them! The only problem- Santa isn't lit up. He takes a full sized light bulb, so tomorrow when it's not so cold, I plan to replace it.

My Front Door

This year, I decorated up my front door for Christmas. I love crafts, and I love houses that are decorated nicely. However, I have neither the money, or the patience to do so myself. Every time I try, the kids are one step behind me, messing it up, breaking things, or hanging off from things. I've just accepted that it will be another 8 years before I can truly decorate my house. At that point, Gillian, my youngest, will be headed off to college.

Anyway, last week I went to JoAnn's, and found 9 foot pine garland (not the fullest of full, but not bad) for only $1.99. I picked up two with the intentions of decorating my doorway outside.

Today while I was on the phone with my step-mom, I got motivated. I hung it, added ribbon that matches my wreath, and hung ornaments from it. I love how it looks, but I do need to go through and straighten the garland a bit. I only wish I had thought to wrap it with clear lights first. Maybe tomorrow?

Here is the wreath I made last week. I made an all green and silver one for my mom a few weeks ago, and liked it. Then last week, I saw an all silver and pink one, and liked it. I went in to Walmart and took a few minutes to peruse the ornaments. I saw the large, glitter covered pink "Let It Snow", and thought it would be perfect for the wreath. I picked up all pink and silver, then reconsidered, and added green in.

I love how it turned out! I had picked up both lime green and white sheer ribbon, but hated how both looked on it. I had a premade silver bow in the closet that I found for $.29 at Goodwill, so I used that for the bow on this one. I attempted to attach the "Let it Snow" by hot glue on the ends to hold it in place, but if you look close, you can see the spot where it was glued, and came free. Ah well!

Because I went with 3 colors, I had several ornaments of each color left over. When I set about putting the garland up (or, as my 7 year old calls it, "Garlic"), I brought out the left over ornaments, as well as some iridescent icicle ornaments to hang from the garland. I also grabbed the sheer green ribbon I hadn't used for the wreath.

I used light clips to hang the garland. They slid between the frame and siding nice and snug, and each has a clip on it that I slide the wire from the garland under, to clip it into place. There are 3 clips on top, so I could swag it, and 2 clips on each side, to hold it in place.

Once it was hung, I added the bow first, which wasn't long. I only did a simple 2-loop bow in the middle, and barely had enough ribbon to swag and hang over the sides.

From there, I used pipe cleaners to attach the ornaments to the garland. Some flopped badly, so I used the garland pine and wired it around a bit to support the ornaments from underneath to place them better.

I hung the icicles from the top swag, and then took my last pink ornament, a silver ornament, and a green ornament and hung them together, and hung them from the bow in the center.

I really like how it looks, and counting all the small things, I spent $21 for it. $15 for the wreath, with $5 total spent on the garland & icicle ornaments. The ribbon is barely noticeable, but I still like it there.

 

Christmas Trees

This year, I'm going a bit crazy. I have 4 Christmas trees to put up. Yes, you read that correctly, 4! Ok, let's be more realistic. 2 are only 3 feet tall, and pre-lit with fiber optics. They don't exactly "count" as far as work involved.

But the other two are both full size trees. I have had the first one for 3 years now, this year. It's a 6 foot tall white tree, pre-lit with clear bulbs. You should know that when it comes to Christmas, the more color, the better. I adore brightly colored lights, bulbs, ribbons, bows, and ornaments on my tree.

My mother was of the mindset that a tree should look uniform, classy, and traditional. Little red bows, clear lights. I can appreciate the simplicity of it, I really can. Just not in my house!

While the white tree with white lights might seem to clash with my need for color, really it doesn't. The first year, we added strands of red lights, and decorated it in only red, white, or silver ornaments. It was our Candy Cane tree. If you turned the clear lights off, it glowed like cinnamon hard candy. I loved it!

Last year, we added multicolored lights. I hated the tree lit just by the colored lights. It went all dim and dark, and the colors just didn't pop like they did if the clear lights were on it. The hues took on a more vibrant shade, with the green looking turquoise, and the reds looking like pink. LOVED it! We put all the ornaments on last year, or rather, about half, I suppose.

After Christmas last year, I had a gift card, and I knew what I wanted. I knew I wanted a traditional tree again. A green tree. A tall, full, green tree. I wanted it cheap, but not cheap looking.

I found a gorgeous 7 1/2 foot tall, full tree, half off the day after Christmas last year. It was the last pre-lit tree with multi colored lights, too! So this year, two big trees. I have a large dining room, which is almost too big to be a dining room if you ask me. We have a table that, when fully extended, seats 8, and there is a lot of empty space around it.

The white tree will go in the dining room this year, in the corner, since there are windows leading right up to the corner on both sides.

The green tree will go in the living room, the center piece of the holiday decorations. I've already told the kids they get to decorate that tree. The white tree is all mine. Here are photos of my white tree from the past two years... enjoy!

Our 2007 Christmas Tree

This is what our tree looked like with just the red lights on, when I used the flash on the camera. Kind of gave it a warm pink glow all over.

This was what the tree looked like with the clear lights off, and no flash on the camera- all warm & cinnamony!

Well, obviously this isn't of my tree, but wasn't Gillian just so darn cute?

My 2008 Christmas Tree

Decorating For Christmas- On a Budget!

Decorating for Christmas- on a budget!

I loved being at my Grandma's house all year around, but even more so at Christmas. She collected Snowmen. Grandma had more snowmen than we were able to count. To put it into perspective, no single ornament on her tree was anything but snowmen. She had a wall made into shelves, 8 feet tall, and probably 15 feet long, every shelf filled to the brim with snowmen. Her tables, wall shelves, even the bathroom, were all filled with snowmen.

But that sort of decorating takes years to accomplish. She got her snowmen mostly from gifts at Christmas, though she was also known to pick one or two up here and there.

So, how do you decorate your house frugally, but make it look nice? Well, forget the paper chains, fake snow, and window clings, here are some idea's that go above and beyond. While there is a definite place for the above mentioned items, not everyone is into preschool-chic decorating. ;)

Frugal Decorating

What You'll Need:

Pillar Candles in Holiday Colors*
Beaded Garland*
Wide Holiday Print Fabric Ribbon*
1-3 Packages Glass or Plastic Bulb Ornaments (if you have young children, or adventurous pets, I recommend using shatter proof, or plastic bulbs for this)
1/2 Yard Holiday Printed or Solid Colored Fabric
1-2 Roll Wrapping Paper in a Color or Pattern of your choice*
Wide Gift Wrap Ribbon*
1 Strand 35 count lights- multicolored or solid**
1 Bag Potpourri*
Suction Cup Hooks for Windows*

I have all the items listed as items to buy, but you should first raid your home to see what all you might already have on hand to use! Quite a bit of the items can be found at Dollar Tree for less than you would pay at a department store, such as Target or Walmart.

The items with a * beside them indicates items you can most likely find at the dollar store. Please note that while Dollar Tree does carry strands of lights now, I would not use them in the manner in which they are needed. I bought some one year, and used them in a potpourri jar, and the wires melted together, and almost caused a fire. Now, I skip Dollar Tree lights!

You might want to decide on a color theme before buying, so that you can stick to a general idea when picking up any items you may need to purchase. You can use any theme you want- jewel tones, traditional red & green, silver & gold, or pick a singular solid color for most of the items. The only limit is your imagination!

What you'll want from home:

1 large jar, like a mason jar, or a large, clear vase (make sure it has a wide neck, not a skinny one!)
1 large serving bowl
1 small "salad" or "dessert" plate for each candle bought (these can be covered if they are not "matching")
Hot glue gun & got glue

Here are the ways these few items can really make a nicely decorated home for your holidays. Many of these ideas would look nice in an office setting as well!

Potpourri Light Jar

• First things first, put the strand of lights into the jar or vase, leaving the plug out. Tape the wire on the outside of the jar so that it lays flat against the jar, but leave enough slack to plug it in.
• Fill the jar with the potpourri, and plug it in. These jars are perfectly safe, and they will heat the potpourri up enough to give off scent. They work great in bathrooms as a night light, and to scent the air.

Christmas Bulb Centerpiece

• Next, lay some fabric in the bowl so it hangs over the edges, if you think it needs to be covered. If not, just skip the fabric and move on to arranging bulbs in it in different sizes, but you probably won't use all of them.
  
• Drape the beaded garland in the bowl, and on top of the bulbs. The colors can all be the same, or you can mix it up for contrast. This makes a great table centerpiece. If you didn't need to use the fabric inside, then put it under the bowl when you place it on the table.

Candle Plates

• For the next one, arrange the candle pillars on plates with 1 or 2 of the smaller sized bulbs on the plate. If you have beaded garland left, put that around it, too.
  
• Take the ribbon, and cut it so that you have just enough to wrap around the candle. Hot glue it to the candle in the back.
  
• Set these out on tables around the living room for a festive touch. If the plates need to be covered, use the fabric that's left over, cutting it into squares that fit on the inside of it, or drape over the edges.

Wrapped Wall Hangings

• Find any pictures or mirrors that are hanging on the walls, and take them down. Wrap them up with the nice wrapping paper, tie with the ribbon, and add a bow, then hang it back up.

Window Ornaments

• Last, take any left over ornaments and any left over ribbon, and tie small bows to hot glue to the top of the ornament, just below the hanger. You can use thread or fish string to hang them in windows from the suction cups. Please note, cats will bat at these, you may want the "shatterproof" plastic bulbs if you do this one.
  

Viola- a frugally decorated house with out a paper chain, snowflake, or window cling in site.

Ways to add more to the decoration for a few dollars more:

You can add to the elegance by weaving a strand of battery operated lights in the bulb center piece to light it up some.

Add battery or cord powered "candle" lights to the windows under the hanging bulbs to reflect some light off of them.

Buy more fabric ribbon to use on the picture presents in place of cheap ribbon.

Get a pretty table runner at the dollar store to put on the kitchen table under the ornament centerpiece.

Buy a set of taper candles and sturdy heavy (but short!) taper holders (I've found heavy glass ones at the dollar store), and put those into the bowl before adding the bulbs & garland for a candle centerpiece.

Buy a bag of jingle bells for about $1-$2 at the store, and add a few to each of the different candle plates, the ornament bowl, and even mixed in with the potpourri jar. Glue one to the center of each bow on the hanging ornaments as well.

I hope these idea's help some people with new decorating ideas!