Homemade Christmas Decorating

[kep]

I am looking for ideas of simple, fun, and cheap ways to decorate our home this year. We are moving soon after Christmas, so I really don't want to drag out all of our decorations this year. I'm hoping to make some fun decorations with the help of my toddler. I need ideas! We already made a really fun garland with construction paper circles (you know, kind of like the countdown to Christmas chains we made as kids...). So, please tell me all your fabulous ideas for decorating on a budget.


Thanks!
Kelli (& Luke)

[brittone2]

AC Moore and Michaels have been having the faux wreaths on sale for as little as 1.70 or so for a 18 inch wreath. We just did some decorating last night where I took really pretty ribbon and used it just to hang the wreath. I decorated the wreath itself with some dark red berry garland I had in my craft stash and it turned out really cute (if you can't picture it, catalogs like Restoration Hardware or PB have a lot of pics of wreaths hung this way).

The craft places sell wooden letters that can be painted cheaply too. I picked up some to paint that spell out JOY. I'll probably glue gun them to a strip of ribbon and hang them somewhere too.

For Thanksgiving I poured a bag of fresh cranberries into two large glass bowl style candle holders I have and set tealights on top of them. You could use hurricanes or something similar too. I'll use it through Christmas provided the berries hold up that long ;). You can also string cranberries (tough on the fingers I imagine though!) or popcorn.

This isn't necessarily a Christmas idea but DS and I made a birdseed wreath last night that we're letting dry out a bit and then we'll hang it outside. YOu make a basic bread dough, and then knead as much birdseed into it as you can. Bake in the shape of a wreath and hang outside for the birds to enjoy. You can also decorate outside trees with halves of oranges filled with birdseed and hung, or popcorn garland, or a pinecone coated w/ peanut butter and dipped in birdseed. My DS is very into watching the birds at our feeder so he's very into his little wreath he helped me make ;)

[mskitty]

I'd suggest making the homemade cookie ornaments (think gingerbread like). There are recipes out there which are designed with lots of cinnamon which smell like potpouri. My second suggestion is use lots of felt. Cut out little stocking and decorate them with ric-rac, ribbons, etc. Cut out green felt Christmas trees, etc. You could buy the clear plactic ornaments and decorate them with paint pens. Twist pipecliners and thread with beads to make candy canes, wreathes and snowflakes. Or make old fashioned lifesaver men (picture yarn dolls with a pack of lifesavers for the body)....

MsKitty

[mudder17]

You can also make snowflakes out of nice colored paper. My sister made a bunch of them with shiny paper and hung them around the house. My other sister made some gingerbread men with her kindergardners (for the life of me, I can't figure out how to spell this word!) and made some extra for their house. You can also string popcorn, although if your toddler is not yet eating popcorn, that might be a bad idea. :P

ETA: I did a quick google search and came up with the following sites:

http://www.allfreecrafts.com/christmas/index.shtml
http://www.bhg.com/bhg/category.jhtml?categoryid=/templatedata/bhg/category/data/Top10_10HolidayCraftsForKids.xml
http://familyfun.go.com/arts-and-crafts/season/specialfeature/holiday_decorations_ms/
http://www.allthingsfrugal.com/x_ornmts.htm

HTH give you some ideas for fun!

Eileen

http://www.mothering.com/discussions/images/smilies/candle.gif for Leah
http://www.gynosaur.com/assets/ribbons/ribbon_emerald_18m.gif

http://tickers.baby-gaga.com/t/catcatcvi20040222_4_Kaya+is.png
Kaya's a cousin! 10/1/05, 5lb13oz

[bostonsmama]

Last year during Advent I did a craft fair with the little ones and made "Candy Cane Shepherd Staffs" out of red and white beads and pipe cleaners. Some of the kids even intertwined red and white pipe cleaners to make mini ornaments to hang on a small tree in the Narthex. We also made snowflake angels out of the old wooden style clothes pins (round head, no metal hinge-20ct for $1 at Dollar Tree) and white paper doilies...and some silver pipe cleaners for a halo. You just take two doilies, fold them in half. Slide the first one folded side up into the clothespin and pull the sides up towards the round "head", then take the second one and stick it up halfway, glue it, draw a face and make the halo by wrapping it first around the neck then up and above the head.

Also, Michaels had evergreen garlands, swags and wreaths on sale for $1.77each and I got one garland for my mantel, one garland above my curtains in the dining room, one to wrap the banister with, and a couple swags (with 60-cent velvet ribbons) to hang on the window sills outside the house and put a small electric candlestick (99cents) in each window. It looks magical outside. We also found some spare garland and wrapped it around our tensor lamp's pole. If you have spare ribbon, you can run various colors and lengths down the center of your table as a table runner. Oh, also you can go to any Lowes or Home Depot during the evening hours and dig through the "scrap" pile for the fresh frasier fir and evergreen pine branches they cut off the bottom of Christmas trees and take them home to decorate the house mantel, hearth, fashion them into wreaths or stick them in a tall vase and attach small ornament balls. We always do this to make the house smell piney-fresh, even though we don't do a fresh tree. It's free, it's easy...and you can throw them away when they're done. Oh, and pine cones are perfect ways to decorate on the cheap, esp if you can find them in a neighbor's yard or on a walk in the park, etc. Spray with a little fake snow or maybe some cheap glitter and it's instant holiday fun!

Have fun!
Larissa
who's gettin in the holiday mood

"Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them." -
James Baldwin