I love Christmastime!  I don’t care about gifts.  I’m not really into holiday shopping.  What I do love…is the decorating!  I love pulling all the boxes out of our attic and getting the house all decked out for the holidays.  I could spend hours perusing the Holiday section in a store, I love taking my time even picking out gift wrapper.  I guess I just love to make things look pretty.

Decorating the Christmas tree is probably my favorite thing about the holiday season.  I remember being a little girl, thinking one day I would have a Christmas tree as beautiful as the ones on display at fancy department stores.  Now, thanks to things I can do all by myself, I do!

Christmastime can be expensive, and I’m not the type to spend an excessive amount of money decorations so instead of buying everything, I like to create things myself to save money.  Check out the look I’ve created in our home by “upcycling” or simply DIY!

I love my Christmas tree!  I love even more that I didn’t have to spend a fortune to achieve the vision I had for this look.

Many of our ornaments are as old as my marriage (about 11 years old) so instead of buying all new ornaments, I updated the look and add a few new things.

The first thing I did was ornament clusters.  It’s so easy!  All I did was string 4 different ornaments together with gold string (about $1 at Wal-Mart).

Second, I added red and gold poinsettias.  One bunch of these with about 3-5 poinsettias are only $1 at the Dollar Store, I just used wire cutter to cut them (leaving about 4 inches of the wire) and inserted them into the tree. So easy and simple!

Our wreath was over ten years old, that’s 1 year older than my daughter!  It didn’t look too terrible, but you can’t really tell how faded the ornaments, flowers and ribbon were.

First, I used wire cutter to cut out the old stuff I no longer wanted to use.

Second, I added floral wire to each decorative piece and wrapped the wire with floral tape by simply winding it around.  I did this with each piece.

Then, I attached each piece around the wreath by wrapping the wires to the base or a branch.

Lastly, I added battery operated lights (only $1 at the Dollar store) to the wreath and tucked in the little battery pack to hide it.  Voila…a brand new wreath!

Here’s what it looks like hanging on the door, all lit up!

Using the same techniques above, another new thing I added to our house is a garland over our fireplace.  Pine garlands can be purchased non lit or prelit.  I bought some miniature ornaments and clustered them together and attached them to the garland.

Last but not least, the last project that I haven’t yet completed is a pine cone centerpiece for our dining table.  I picked the pine cones right out of our back yard!  I cleaned, dried (baked in the oven) and spray painted the pine cones with metallic gold spray paint ($5 at hardware store).  I just need to find a big enough vase or bowl while the paint dries.  This is how it will look:

Creating a festive look in your home doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. There are so many ideas on Google, Tumblr, and Pinterest!  It just takes a little creativity and time.  DIY Christmas decor is also something fun to do with kids!

Merry Christmas!