Decorate Your Home; Don't Drain Your Wallet

The holidays are upon us and it's time to start thinking about holiday decorations. If you go to the store, you might find that decorations are on the pricey side. That's not good when you are trying to save money for something special or because you just don't have the extra money for decorations this year.

However, your house doesn't have to go naked for the holidays and you don't have to spend outlandish amounts on decorations. Decorate on a budget with beautiful homemade decorations.

Create a Christmas Mantle
Add a festive look and a fresh pine smell to your home by arranging live pine boughs along the mantle. You might get some from a stand that sells Christmas trees for little to nothing – many of them throw cut branches away. Get some thin Styrofoam from a craft store and cut out snowflakes. Add glitter to them for more decorations.

Light Your Table
Create a centerpiece from a clear glass bowl, some decorations, and flameless candles. You could do this in a solid color bowl, though you wouldn’t see the decorations. Arrange three or four flameless candles in the bowl. Arrange pieces of different colored garland around the base of the candles. Put as much or as little as you would like. If you can get pine cones from the woods, add pine cones. If you do not have a clear glass bowl, use any type of filler so that the decorations show over the top of the bowl. Add other decorations such as Styrofoam snowflakes or even small ornaments. If you decide to use real candles, make sure they don’t burn down far enough to catch anything on fire.

Candle Lights
Mix Epsom salts with red and green glitter and put about 2 inches in the bottom of a mason jar. Add a candle. If you make several, you could line a mantel with them or even put the mason jar candles in the window. If you are going to put them near anything flammable, you should consider using flameless candles.

Christmas Tree Name Cards
Glue fabric or left-over wrapping paper on poster board or even cardboard cut into tree shapes. If you cut a slit from the top of one tree and the bottom of another, you can fit the two together, so they stand up. Draw or glue decorations onto the tree, including each guest’s name.

Christmas Branches
Grab some branches that are long but small in diameter from the woods. Spray paint them with white spray paint – or use holiday-themed colors. Let the paint dry. Meanwhile, add a mixture of Epsom salts and glitter into a quart mason jar. Once the branches dry, stick them into the “snow.” Add colorful decorations to the branches. Depending on the length of the branches, you could use this a corner decoration on the floor or a small table or you could put it on the mantle.

Create an Ornament Curtain
Use holiday-colored ribbons to hang ornaments on a curtain rod. If the ribbons are wider, you could have a curtain. Tie the ribbon on the curtain rod and cut it to the length you want. Tie an ornament on the bottom of the ribbon.

Floating Snowflakes
Cut snowflakes out of cardboard. Paint the cardboard white. Decorate it with glitter. Hang them from the ceiling with fishing line to give the illusion that they are floating in your home.