Christmas Decorating Ideas?

So, I'm uber broke and can't afford to buy any christmas decorations and was wondering if any of you thrify mamas have any ideas for some cheap and crafty christmas decorations. I've made soooo many white paper snowflakes that I think I'll puke if I have to make another one!

 

Go to the 99 cent store and buy the cheep bulb and garland, also buys some glue (elmers works good), paint brush, glitter and ribbon (all at the 99 cent store). Paint designs on the bulbs with the glue and sprinkle glitter on them, it also looks nice if you cover the whole thing. There look great on the tree and you can tie bows and some of the decorated bulbs onto the garland and it looks really nice. I made decorations like that the entire time I was in college. They look nice and are cheep I think the most I spent was about 20 bucks.:jester:

 

Well this year, I'm going with a silver-and-blue themed Christmas, I saw it in a magazine and thought it was just beautiful.

I too, though, am on a limited budget. Dollar stores are a great place to hit around the holidays, I've gotten a few items from there. Discount tables at craft stores (and using whatever coupons I can find in my newspaper) are an excellent place to look, or better yet, plan ahead for next year and spend boxing week buying uber-discounted materials.

I love glass tree ornmanets, I've found a few at a craft store for cheap. I sprayed the inside with glue in some, shook around some blue glitter, dumped out the rest and I've blue glass glittery tree ornaments. I've also filled a few more ornaments with stringy ribbon, shreads of yarn, buttons and beads in my colour scheme. (Ribbons, yarn, buttons and beads are already around my home.)

In floral sections of dollar stores and craft stores, you can also collect a few holiday themed flowers, evergreens, and berries, and use the wirey stems to wrap around candles, light fixtures, around bunched curtains, and intertwined into the Christmas tree.

Some dollar stores and most craft stores carry very cheap styrofoam rings to be used as wreath bases. I've bought 5, wrapping each in leftover ribbon, yarn, or last year's silver tinsel, and decorating the wreath with dried acorns, pinecones, and dried evergreen branches that I've lightly sprayed with either silver or blue spray paint as an accent.

I've also a lot of pictures hanging around my house, so with a bit of double sided tape, I've surounded the frames with silver tinsel as well, plus a few holiday themed berries in one or two corners of the picture, which makes the walls more festive!

Just a couple ideas...

 

One year when we lived near the beach, we picked up shells with holes in them, covered them with glue and glitter and hung them ont eh tree. It was nice. We were so poor, we had an old white fake tree. It was super cheesy. Meleah said it was worse than macaroni and cheese from a box.

 

we're buying kids gloves at a dollar store and using those as ornaments on our tree hahaha


another great idea is taking old lightbulbs and painting them, tying/glueing string all around the bottom socket of it to hide it, and glueing snowflake/star shaped sequins onto it...we're doing that too. You can also always buy polymer clay and make your own ornaments.....or whip up your own bakable recipe, get some xmas themed cookie cutters and paint them....my mom used to do that with me as a kid all the time.

I got a giant GIANT stocking from a dollar store and we're wrapping old boxes and shoving them in there to put on our front door. In total i think we've spent like $20 at dollar stores and got an ASSLOAD of stuff.

ooooo another thing we're doing is buying froot loops or corn pops (you can also do this with popcorn) and string them onto thread and use it as garland. my sister came up with that and has been doing it with her kids for years.

 

http://www.frugalhaus.com/scripts/treeorns.asp little knitted xmas trees

http://www.allfreecrafts.com/christmas/card-ornaments.shtml ball ornaments from old greeting cards

I have some dollhouse furniture on my tree that I got at the dollar store. I've also painted toy soldiers from wooden clothespins and make snowmen from circles of felt that I stitched around the edge, gathered and stuffed.

 

daisymae, I adore the little knitted xmas trees, very steller and the ball ornaments are a clever idea

 

Those little tree ornaments are adorable! I'm definitly making some of those!

 

String up cranberries, popcorn, cinnamon sticks, make cinnamon/applesauce/glue ornaments,
uh use lil' cookie cutters to cut out xmas shapes from orange peel, let em dry and string em up with the other things. Make wreaths from whatever plant material you can find around where you live... hmm... knit stockings...if you have children have them make you some christmas pictures/decorations

 

here is a good idea blow up a baloon to about baseball size dip string in elmers glue
wrap it around the baloon put glitter on the string
let harden for 24 hours pop the baloon that shud work