Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Christmas Decorating


I love decorating for holidays.
When Autumn rolls around I usually think that Halloween is my favorite holiday. I love everything about it...spookiness! pumpkins! costumes! pumpkin spice lattes!
But then it passes and Thanksgiving comes and goes (and I eat too much) and boom! it's Christmas! And I start decorating and the Rat Pack Christmas CD starts playing and I think, hmmm maybe Christmas is my favorite.
It troubles me.
It troubles me until I realize that you can have more than one favorite holiday and then I feel good!
Whew!


Before this year I have always had just my house to decorate for Christmas. We have tons of decorations in the attic so there was no real need to make or buy anything else. But this year Austin lives in his own little cottage down town and it is my responsibility as his fiance to decorate that cottage until it can't be decorated no mo. A few years I started my own little collection of decorations to use when Austin and I are married but because we are not yet (and we don't live together!) we haven't. And though it may have been tempting to break out those boxes and start decorating I had to stop myself because I know it will be much more special to do that once we are married. So what was I supposed to do on this in between year? I had to start getting crafty and decorate his cottage on a mini budget.

Funny thing is, those crafts usually end up being the most special decorations you have!

I wanted to post some of those inexpensive crafts and purchases here for anyone who was looking for any ideas for decorating during the holidays.



The Newlywed Huffmans and the couple that is Hannah&Kyle are also on a budget so we decided to get together to and decorate our own ornaments from the simple brown paper mache ornaments sold at Michaels for less than a dollar.
Hannah got the apple cider started on the stove and we got to crafting.


 Here are our finished ornaments:

 Mine and Austin's

 Hannah's

 Jessica and Derek's



On one of my many trips to Michaels around the holidays I saw that the simple holly berry garlands were half off (and only $6.99 to begin with!). I grabbed two of those and wrapped them around Austin's front door with a burlap bow on top. I think it is so simple and sweet looking. 



Next I started thinking of how I would wrap my presents this year. I always like to do the brown kraft paper ($1 rolls at the dollar store!) with some sort of topper tied to the ribbon but this year I had a new idea. Why not paint the paper with a little holiday cheer? I love the way these turned out...


When Austin told me that he wanted to get his own tree this year I started thinking of ways to decorate it without buying a ton of ornaments.
I had an old book I bought from a thrift store earlier this year for less than a dollar and a handy dandy paper cutter so I tore out the pages and cut them into strips to make a paper garland. The book is older (but I paper back so I don't feel TOO guilty cutting it up hehe) so the pages have a nice brownish look to them which ended up looking so pretty when made into a garland. Kerry and I worked on these garlands for a few hours one day and ended up with yards of it!


Hannah and Kyle went to a tree lot called Grandma Buddy's Christmas Trees up in Sebastopol last week and told us how magical it is so Austin and I knew we had to take the drive up there to check it out and get his tree. It was just as amazing as she described it! There is an old victorian home and barn on the property which has actually been used for Pottery Barn catalogs and a nice lot of trees that you cut down yourself.



We walked around the whole lot looking for the perfect tree and finally towards the end of our search we found it! I was drawn to it's Charlie Brown qualities, a little sparse but full of love!
I grabbed the cuttings for a future project and we were on our way!
We stopped at Target on our way home where I bought $3 gold tinsel to be used on the tree.

Last night we decorated that cute lil tree and I am sooo pleased with the results!
I love the way the tinsel and paper garlands look together. If you don't have a ton of ornaments I also found that tying little pieces of red ribbon on the ends of branches added a nice touch.

I'll post later about the wreaths and swag I made with the tree cuttings. Austin likes that I made "swag" for his house. He thinks he has "swag."

And hey! It's only December 4th so I'm sure I will have more crafts in my future...


4 comments:

paula said...

It's all so good, but that wrapping paper is simply amazing!!!! Love that you have been collecting ornaments for you and your future Mr. So special.

Unknown said...

I just recently found your blog and it's adorable!! I was on a budget this year so this post gave me some ideas :) I wish my Michaels had that garland!!

xo
Rachel

Main Street said...

Thank you Paula!

Main Street said...

So glad you found us! Don't you just love shopping at michaels? So many good deals and projects to do!