Budget Friendly DIY Christmas Decorating Ideas
I may be an Interior Designer, but much to the chagrin of my children, I don’t do a lot in terms of Christmas decorating each year! Maybe my inner Scrooge is just coming out, but the idea of decorating my house top-to-bottom for the Christmas season just seems…overwhelming. And I’m a busy mama! So in our house I stick to decorating just one main room, our Living Room, and with as many budget friendly items as I can. Today I wanted to share three of my favorite budget-friendly and super simple ways that I decorate for the holidays:
$1 DIY Christmas Mantle Decorating Idea
Yup, just one dollar. There are some decorations we re-use every year, but I also try to include a new idea each year just to jazz things up a bit. And this year I came up with this idea for my plaid containers for my mantle. I dug around in our recycling bin and found (clean) aluminum cans in three different sizes. I grabbed five of them for my own mantle. Then I used plaid wrapping paper from the Dollar Store ($1) to simply wrap the cans. We live in the woods so my six year old and I put on our Uggs (she called them her Snuggies) and grabbed handfuls of evergreen branches. I literally just stuck them in my wrapping paper wrapped cans and I was finished!
One Dollar and Ten Minutes for this super simple Christmas mantle decor.
You could add water to the cans to keep the branches fresh longer as well. And if you don’t have access to free greenery, you can also try the Christmas tree lot. Lots usually have extra branches that have fallen off or have been cut off for their customer’s trees. Or make a new friend who lives in the woods!
$10 DIY Christmas Stockings
Please, please know that I have the very basic of rudimentary sewing skills. It has been a dream of mine for…well, forever, to learn how to sew really well and use my DIY skills all over the house. But with three little kids I haven’t made that dream come true yet. So I promise you, this is the world’s easiest sewing project…because I made it.
I went to Jo-Anns and used those amazing 40% coupons and bought both white and black felt for a total of $10. I traced a simple stocking pattern onto the white felt (a total of 10-enough for two sides for five stockings). Then I sewed the two sides together to make a simple stocking. I wish I could say each stocking was my family member’s exact silhouette…but I’m not going to lie to you! I went online and searched for silhouette photos that were similar to my own family members. I printed them, cut them out, and traced each one onto black felt. Then I sewed on each silhouette onto the center of each stocking. To jazz it up, I added a black band to the top of each stocking and some small white rick rack. Then I sewed on a ribbon (using some I already owned) to the top of each stocking so I could hang them. $10 and a few hours to create this custom DIY stockings. And the best part…no one fights over whose stocking is whose!
NOTE: If you really can’t sew, you could always use a Stich Witchery type product or even fabric glue.
Also, I will say these stockings really are for decorative purposes only. If I really did fill them up with items the felt probably wouldn’t hold. So you could also use a heavy duty fabric instead. I totally did this on the spur-of-the-moment, so if I could do it over again I would probably go in that direction.
These wood and gold vases on my mantle are from Target. Every time we open a bottle of wine we write down the date and the event on the cork and save them. Every now and then I pop through them and remember some of our best times with friends and family!
Simple Budget-Friendly Christmas Tree Decorating
And finally, for my third and final Budget-Friendly Christmas decorating idea, it was for our Christmas tree.
My sweet little family of five has a BLAST going to the country tree farm, taking out a horse-drawn sled, and picking out the “perfect” tree. My hubby cuts it down and we drag it back to the sled. Then we celebrate with hot chocolate and cookies. I love it, and some of my favorite holiday memories are around this little tradition.
However (total Scrooge moment here!), I don’t love DECORATING the tree. I know, something is wrong with me. For about six years we didn’t hang our ornaments because we had little toddlers in the house that would pull off the ornaments, and we had some goners along the way (ornaments…not children!). But I have to admit, not spending hours decorating (and even worse-taking OFF the ornaments in January) was actually pretty nice. Over the years we have cut out paper snowflakes with the kids, or let them decorate the tree with pipe cleaner candy canes. Super simple ideas that we can just throw away at the end of the season. We will still probably do something like that.
But this weekend we put up our tree and only did two decorations after putting on the lights:
Two Simple DIY Christmas Tree Decorating Ideas
ONE: I spent $5 on modern black and white stripe ribbon from Michaels. I created this little bow and let some ribbons flow down the sides of the tree.
TWO: Instead of a tree skirt, I found an oversized woven basket from Target for $30. I loved the simple, clean look and it fit with my cottage style. Be sure you use a tree stand to fit inside of the basket. Our tree stand is 16″ in diameter from WalMart, so it snuggled right into this 18″ diameter basket.
You can also see it on my beloved World Market console table, but I also filled a tray with some leftover gold Dollar Store ornaments I had from a past year.
I may be a designer, but I would SO much rather spend my extra time snuggling by the fire, baking gingerbread cookies with the kids, and maybe even join them outside to play in the snow (maybe). You are certainly going to find a lot more fancy, more beautiful ideas from amazing designers on Pinterest. Mine can’t even come close to competing. But luckily, I won’t even try. If you are looking for ways to make this holiday season less stressful, go with less decorating and more family time. I hope you got a few ideas to get you started on super simple, budget-friendly Christmas decorating ideas!
If you are looking for even more Christmas ideas, check out my Christmas Decorating Pinterest Board or check out my FREE RESOURCE LIBRARY that is full of design freebies like Guides, Shopping Lists, Mood Boards and more…be on the lookout for some upcoming Holiday Decorating ideas only found there!
Image: The Chronicles of Home
And if you need some Family Room Design ideas that aren’t Christmas related, then you are in luck! Here are 50 Family Room Decorating Ideas from Shutterfly…and a Postbox Designs Family Room is even featured on it. Check it out and get amazing ideas for your space!
And join me in a few days where I share Part II of How to Create the Perfect Playroom, based off a real Playroom project I recently finished for a client.
Cheers,
Kristin
Hassan says
Very good ideas! I just love your “Mantle Decorating Idea” and put this idea in my decoration this time you solve my so much Confusions about decorating and budget. Thanks for sharing this amazing staff.