Christmas Decorations on the Cheap Part 3: Make the Ordinary Fun

When people ask me what the one piece of advice I can give them when it comes to decorating with class but cheap, I always tell them, "Keep it simple".

And by that I don't really mean just shove a Christmas ball into a bowl and stick it on your table and call it good.  I mean use what you have, buy a few key pieces if you want and use those as focal points, but the big thing is don't buy into the mindset that you have to have your home looking like a Pottery Barn catalog with every season and that you have to spend a lot of money to get a certain look.  It just isn't necessary.

Try to figure out something that helps you to show your own unique style and personality and just go with it.

For instance, when talking about key pieces in decorating, seen up above is the top of our antique bar in our den.  In the center stands a hurricane vase (I think that's what it's called *laugh*) that I got at a yard sale for .50 a while back.  That vase stays put all year, but during the different seasons the contents change.  In the Spring/Summer I put small sea shells in it as I go with a coastal type of theme in the den for Spring and Summer.  In the fall I put pine cones mixed with some Indian corn and put some fall picks sticking out the top. 

And above is what I do for the Christmas season/winter.  The contents are some vintage glass ornaments that I love but will not be put on my Christmas tree because I don't want them to get broken.  In between the ornaments, to help protect them from breaking in an earthquake and also to add depth to the vase, I put a bunch of pine cones I harvested from my yard that I reuse every year just for this purpose.

Don't have a vase you can use for something like this?  What about a glass bowl placed in the middle of your kitchen table?  Don't have a clear glass bowl?  How about a mixing bowl you aren't using with some Christmas ornaments in it?  Even a plastic bowl with some unbreakable ornaments could look pretty festive.

On the right is a quart mason jar I had in the den and I just placed candy canes from a Christmas tree past on it (I bought certified peanut free candy canes this year and tend to reuse candy canes from year to year, so I had some extra).  On the left I put some spools of Christmas ribbon I use for Christmas wrapping (for the most part they are old Costco ribbon spools that I bought at used stores for 1.00 or less through the years).

In front I put a red cinnamon scented candle that I've had since...wow since my husband and I got married I think (14 years?).  I normally keep it in my china cabinet for emergency lighting "just in case", but I pull it out at times like this for decoration purposes.  The steel platter is normally in my den floating around and I needed a place to put the candle so it didn't stain the bar, so voila!  Instant landing zone.  The pine cones I bought at a used store in a bag of big pine cones for like .75 years ago and I float them around from place to place to decorate during the fall and winter months.  My son loves to play with them, so I'm thinking one day soon I'll have to buy more, but for the time being they are surviving.

And here is the area where the "buy for the next season after the holiday has passed" thing comes into play.  All of the above things were purchased at 90% off at different stores.  The houses light up and are all Peanuts related (well Snoopy's dog house doesn't light up).  My kids love them and they were 1.00 to 3.00 a piece when I bought them.  The plate I got at Fred Meyer years ago on clearance and we use that as our "Santa cookie landing zone" for Christmas Eve.  My daughter has already asked if she could inherit the plate some day, which I told her we'd talk about it if it survived till she was an adult.

And above you can see a few Christmas frogs that I have (I used to collect frogs hard when I was younger...still think they are neat, but I don't collect them anymore *laugh*) and think are really cute.  They too get put into storage and pulled out with the Christmas decorations.  Most were gifts given to me years ago that I just reuse from year to year.

 Another area where I decorated with everyday items for the holidays when it came to the ribbon.  It also leads into my next piece of advice...buy used if you can get it cheap!  I have never bought ribbon new and have found new spools at the used stores for .25 to 1.00 as the years have gone by.  I finished off the top of the shelf with an antique German glass bird that I found at a used store for .25.  I collect German glass ornaments (they are now all in storage because, kids), so when I saw the little bird missing it's tail I had to grab it and bring it home.  Unlike other birds in my collection, which I LOVE (birds on your tree mean joy you know.  I have thought they were wonderful since I first laid eyes on them when I was 12), this bird had an actual hook system to hang on a tree instead of a spring loaded clip to attach to a tree branch.  So, I figured I could put it somewhere OTHER than on a tree.

I brought it home, put some lace carefully into it's tail with a knitting needle to replace the horse hair it used to have and then placed it in a small little bird's nest I had left in my Christmas decorations.  Every time I see it it makes me smile.

And here's one more example of using what you have to decorate.  I just placed some of my collection of Christmas cookie cutters into the same glass jar I used at Halloween to place candy in on my sideboard and then placed it over on my bread box.  It shouts "festive", but does double duty as both a practical storage solution for my cookie cutters for the time being and also as a neat Christmas decoration as it shows off different cookie cutters.

There are a lot of different ideas you can do with cookie cutters to help you decorate.  I saw a tip to turn them into napkin rings (just tie a string around the cookie cutters or if you have the metal frame type just put the napkin through the middle of the cookie cutter), tie them to some string to make into a little garland for your kitchen...get creative! 

I have a few other tips for another post, but here's hoping you might have gotten some ideas from this one!

A Gift a Day Gift Twenty-Nine: Button Wreath Ornaments

Since I was short gifts for teachers and therapists I kind of had to come up with some different ideas to replace the pot holders I was making, soooo here is one of those gifts I came up with.

I actually got inspired by some ornaments I'd purchased from a vendor a long while back and then I looked for a tutorial to recreate what I remembered her ornaments had been like (I ended up giving said ornaments away due to safety issues with my button chewing loving son).  I found this one, which was close to what I remembered, but hers had been made with buttons and straight wire (like I recreated here). I thought of doing the wreaths in the tutorial as they looked easier, but I didn't have any green felt, so I thought I'd just take some jeweler's wire and wire two layers of buttons together by doing straight stitch with the wire (and a bit of creative bending) and pray that the finished product would come out close to what I remembered.  It worked really well and I thought they turned out pretty darned good.

These will be given to my son's occupational therapist, his speech therapist and his adaptive PE teacher at school.

I used some scrap booking paper to make some cute envelopes to give these in too, so I hope they like them.

Total cost to make gift:  Nothing as I used buttons I already had in my button jar to make these and I had the wire in with my bead working things.

Total Time to Make Gift:  Two and a half hours.  Bending wire around buttons takes a while!

Monthly Goals Update and This Week's Goals

Before I get into how the goals for this last week went I just wanted to share a lesson I learned the hard way.

Do not, if you can help it, wash and dry three bolts of fabric at one time.  The amount of time you'll spend untangling the mess of fabric when it is all said and done won't save you any time then if you had just done it one bolt of fabric at a time instead.  Just saying.

Despite having a son home sick a couple of days this last week and dealing with other after effects of the stomach flu with him,  I was able to get some things accomplished on very little sleep.

1.  I got all of the Christmas decorations dug out and put up (I think). 

2.  I got some work on Christmas gifts done, mainly today as most of this last week I was dealing with a sick kiddo, waiting on a call from the school on sick kiddos or trying hard not to crash when the kids were at school.

3.  I haven't had a chance to talk to the principal of my daughter's school yet about possible substituting positions that might be around as she was on vacation some of last week and at meetings at other times when I was there.  So, I'm hoping to get more information on that this week.  We'll see how that goes.

4.  I was able to weed through the residuals of cookbooks that I had and quickly figured out which ones I didn't want.  I donated the ones I didn't.

5.  I shampooed the carpets twice so far and got my stairs foamed and deep cleaned yesterday.

6.  I got the main table runner done out of the Christmas Snoopy fabric (an up close look at it is seen above as I really enjoy the messages on the fabric).

7.  While searching for wayward Christmas decorations in storage I stumbled across my box of cookbooks that I would need for holiday baking, so those are in the house now.

8.  I got some stocking stuffers done for my husband this week, but still have more to do for the kids.

9.  I deep cleaned my son's room.  Twice.  Planning on doing it one more time tomorrow while he's in school.

So, now onto the goals for this week.

1.  Make Christmas cookies (this is probably going to be this weekend as I want to make sure my daughter can help).

2.  Work on Christmas gifts. 

3.  Finish detail cleaning house in preparation for speech therapy (due to a bunch of schedule changes because of therapists moving one day a week we are having home teaching by my son's speech therapist).

4.  Make covering for coffee table in living room and maybe one for sideboard.

5.  Make cloth napkins for holidays.  Have fun embroidering fun designs on them.

6.  Wrap gifts that are done.  Put under tree.

7.  Sort laundry (we have the clean laundry mountain going on right now after my son being sick last week).

8.  Reorganize gloves and hats in den so that they aren't scattered everywhere.

9.  Organize TV area in living room so that tapes aren't scattered everywhere.

And there you are folks.  My goals for this week.  Are you up to anything this week?

A Gift a Day Gift Twenty-Eight: Sleep Pants

My son actually likes to run around in sleep pants from time to time so every year I do try to make him at least one pair of sleep pants for Christmas.  So, I took some of the flannel I had in my fabric stores and made him a pair in the next size up.

I used some of the flannel I bought last year on Black Friday sales at Jo Ann Fabrics (it ended up being about 8.00 per bolt of fabric). 

To make sleep pants I love this pattern, but alas I don't think it's made anymore (which is a total shame as it's got great beginner sewing instructions for it from cutting fabric onward).  Bright side, though, is Simplicity makes various patterns for pants and this is one of many (and they are all equally easy to follow instructions on).  Like this one  looks promising.

I got my pattern years ago at the thrift store for .10.  The previous owner of the pattern had cut it down to the smallest size, but had kept all of the scraps to the pattern to upsize the pattern.  So I've been SLOWLY taping one size to another as the kids have grown *laugh*.  It takes a little bit to tape the pattern back together, but worth it.

Total Cost To Make Gift:  I'd say about 2.00 once you include the cost of the fabric.  The elastic waistband I had as I got a bunch from my step-mom in one of her pinata boxes that she sends me and the thread was the same.

Total Time to Make Gift:  About an hour and a half once you include cutting time.  I love Simplicity patterns for this reason as the patterns are really easy to follow.

Christmas Decorations on the Cheap Part 2: Stating the Case for a Small Tree

I almost kind of lumped all of the Christmas decorations into one post, but then thought better of it because some things deserve some more attention than that.  This, my friends, is one of those cases.

Around here we have a small Christmas tree.  Minuscule compared to some.  It was a 10.00 clearance tree from Target that we bought three or so years ago to replace our other tree that wouldn't keep branches on it.

It is a slim diameter...three feet might be generous at the bottom.  Some people have called it a hallway tree it's so slim.  It stands at about five feet with the star on top of it.  My son broke the cheapy tree stand last year and my husband quickly built a tree stand out of some scrap wood for it.  At least it's stable now with the wooden tree stand and some duct tape to fill up the play in the tree stand, the tree is pretty darned sturdy now.  I still have a ribbon strung around the center of the tree and tacked to the wall behind it, just to be a bit safer in case my son decides to do something crazy, but it's pretty stable I think.

Not a catalog perfect tree for sure.

But you know what?  I love that tree.

Why? Well there are some really good reasons to love a small tree!

1.  One strand of LED lights takes up the entire tree, so I don't have to worry about storing more than one strand of lights for the tree every year.  And this also helps to reduce energy consumption in that you only have on strand of lights, compared to 3 or more.

2.  I can string the lights by myself and not worry about them tangling because even my small slim arms can wrap around the tree as I wrap the lights.

3.  It doesn't take many ornaments to fill the tree.  I was able to put away all of my breakable ornaments when we bought the tree (thank goodness since my son got into the habit of climbing the tree...thus the wooden tree stand) and just left ornaments that are safe for the kids to play with on the tree and I never had to buy more ornaments as the tree was just that much smaller than our previous one.

4.  Here's a thrifty tip for you.  Instead of tinsel or garland for the tree I went to Jo-Ann Fabrics a long time ago and bought like 15 yards of gold rope.  Using a coupon for 40% off or something like that I got out of there spending less than 10.00 for the rope.  And I've used that rope on our tree instead of garland now for six years or so and it's still going strong toward many more years on the tree.  That's a lot cheaper than having to buy garland for a tree every year or two, it doesn't get stuck to everything and it's easy to store.

5.  The best part of a small tree, especially one slim in diameter is that if you put four gifts under the tree the underneath looks full, so you don't feel this need to make the underside of the tree look "catalog stuffed with presents" perfect.  I really do think this helps to reduce holiday spending because you don't feel this need to fill space in.

6.  My son can now reach the topmost branches of the tree (he's grown tall enough) so I don't have to worry about him pulling down the tree to get at an ornament he wants.

7.  The tree came in three sections and all the branches are pre-secured to the trunk.  So, I can put the tree up in fifteen minutes if you count shaping time.

8.  My kids love this tree just as much as they would a eight foot tree and it takes up about 1/4 of the space of a bigger tree in my den.

So, there you are folks.  Why we have a small tree and why I'm hoping this one will last for a while as replacing it with anything less than a ginormous tree might end up being hard.  I'm really happy I was able to find this 10.00 tree and hope that I can somehow make it stay in one piece for many years to come.

Oh and another benefit of having a tree with a small diameter like this?  You can actually see the hand quilted tree skirt I got at one of our local thrift stores years ago for .50 (yes, fifty CENTS for a hand quilted tree skirt.  I couldn't believe it when I found it!).  I think it's so cute, but it always got buried underneath a really big tree.  Now I can really enjoy it as it takes a while for the gifts to bury the tree skirt now :).

And if you look close you can see a shot of our cat, Ginger under the tree there.  Every year we put up the tree and she camps out under it until the gifts stop her from doing so.  It's pretty funny.

Frugal Friday: Money Saving Weekly Recap

Well, I can happily say that things are going a bit better around here for now.  We were able to get paid for some work my husband did which allows me to breathe without panicking for a little bit.  Being able to be happy and not worried this time of year really does make the holiday season pass a little bit more happily.

Double bright side is that because we actually got paid, that I was able to go to the store and get a few things that I was hoping to be able to afford, but feared I wouldn't be able to.  Which will save me money later, which is definitely a good thing.

So, some ways I saved money this week are...

1.  We put together one of our advent calendars today (I know, we're running late this year).  You can see it above.  We went into one of our local thrift stores last year around the holidays and one of the owners, who knows we're regulars, gave us a couple of unopened advent calendars for the kids for free.  I put one together last year and my daughter had fun playing with it and also opening all of the doors as advent progressed.  This year my daughter is even reading the messages inside of the boxes to us, which makes me proud.

2.  I went to the store today and hit some sales hard.  Carrs has navel oranges for .99 per pound this week.  I got ten pounds.  It wasn't the lowest price point of the season, that was at Fred Meyer's a couple of weeks ago, but my daughter had already blown through the 6 pounds of oranges I had bought then, so I figured I'd better stock up this time around.  She even wants me to start including them in with her lunch for school, so I'm thinking that these MIGHT last about three weeks...might.

I was also able to get the groceries we needed and still came in 50.00 under my normal weekly grocery budget.  I used part of that money to fill up the gas tank in my car instead of doing the usual 5 to 7 gallons of gas to get me through another week of school.

3.  I made some Christmas decorations for the outside of the house with materials I already had around the house.

4.  I was nearly out of dish soap, but instead of throwing it out when I couldn't squeeze anymore out of it, I added a bit of water to it and shook the bottle well.  This allowed me to do three more loads of dishes with what little soap was left in the bottle.  I have soap to refill the bottles with as I empty them, but I still preferred to empty the bottle completely before refilling it.

5.  I found Andes mints at the store on sale for 1.00 per box.  I bought four boxes.  These will be used as stocking stuffers for the kiddos as well as for some baking fun around here.

6.  I continued to work on Christmas gifts this week, although I'm still hoping to make more progress on those over the weekend.  I was worried about putting up the Christmas tree for fear I'd lose the ability to use my sewing machine, so I thought about it and redid the layout of my den so that I could put up the tree today and also be able to use my sewing machine.  My husband actually prefers the new layout to the old, so double bonus on that (more on that later).

7.  I called in some of my utility bills today, thus saving myself a stamp.

8.  This week we spent a lot of the week at home due to my son still not feeling great from his stomach flu after effects, so I didn't spend money on "satellite items" or anything like that.

9.  I had a problem where I have to shampoo my stairs in my house because of some stomach flu things that happened (won't go into icky details), but my carpet shampooer hose thing for upholstery and stairs has never worked right and finally broke completely a bit ago.  Instead of sitting there for hours messing around with the hose and worrying about trying to get it all working to the point I could get the stairs cleaned, I went and just bought some carpet cleaning foam at the store as part of my normal grocery budget.  The foam will disinfect the carpet and get it cleaner than trying to use the carpet cleaning attachment and it will save me a lot of time and effort.

And there you are folks.  Some ways I saved money this week.  How did you do?

A Gift a Day Gift Twenty-Seven: Handkerchiefs

This is actually probably going to be a stocking stuffer, but I'm counting it anyway. 

Every year I tried for a long time to get my husband a package of handkerchiefs.  In his business he carries one in his pocket every day in case he needs one (really it works better than my system of collecting paper towels folded up in my pockets and constantly putting them through the laundry...one of my faults I've had for years).  The last couple of years, however, I've stayed away from the stores at Christmastime as much as possible and I refuse to pay the full price they want you to pay for handkerchiefs at Christmastime.

So, in short, some of his handkerchiefs are getting really thread bare.  So, this year I figured I'd make him some.

I used bleached muslin and then simply took one of his handkerchiefs and added two inches onto the width and length I got (as the handkerchiefs I've gotten him have shrank over time) and then used that handkerchief as a template to cut out the others.  I used a 1/4 inch rolled hem (fold in 1/4" and then fold 1/4" again, hiding your raw edge) and sewed it down as close to the edge of the fold as possible to avoid any pokey edges getting someone in the nose.

I made him six of them, which I'm hoping will help pad out his current stock.

I know, not a very exciting gift, but a needed one and really if you have someone in your family who likes handkerchiefs (we use them around here, obviously) this is a pretty practical gift that will be appreciated I'm sure.

Total Cost to Make Gift:  I had all the materials, so really free, but the muslin was .99 a yard on sale a while back when I bought it, so I'd say about .80 worth of materials were used.

Total Time to Make Gift:  Two hours.  I had a cat helping me pin, which didn't help my speed any.