Category: Home Decor

Simple, Inexpensive Christmas Decorations

Christmas is in full swing at my house! Whoo hoo!

Today I want to share two simple Christmas decorating ideas. Both are so easy and take no more than 10 minutes each. And both are for common areas in your house — kitchen and bathroom! (Although you could really put them anywhere.)

I shared in an earlier post about my Halloween decoration using candy corn, candles, mason jars, and ribbons. To change this to a Christmas decoration, I dumped out the candy corn and took off the ribbon. I kept the cream candles inside the mason jars since they all had plenty of life left in them. I took some of my $2 garland (thrift store!!) and wrapped it around the jars.

20131127_142702I wanted to add cranberries (real or fake) but I ended up buying a couple bags of Cherry Sours at Kroger. They were $1 a bag — way cheaper option and they are super similar in appearance!

I dumped a handful of sours in each jar and made sure they all looked equal. I also added two pine cones for extra festivity.

20131201_185401While I was pleased with the way it looked on my bathroom counter, something still felt missing. I also didn’t like that there was an outlet right behind the jars. I got out my little chalkboard from another fall decoration and searched Pinterest until I found a cute, simple chalkboard saying that inspired me.20131201_192046Ta-Da! Quick and easy but oh so festive. Just the way I like it!

The other decoration was a simple kitchen centerpiece. I have a store-bought, large centerpiece for holiday gatherings, but I wanted a simpler one for everyday use. I got our trifle bowl out and emptied another bag of Cherry Sours into it. I put another cream candle in the middle and surrounded it with pine cones.  The candle looked a bit too short for this, so I decided to heighten it. Rather than buy a new candle, I set three wine corks on end in the center of the bowl.

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This gave the candle a lot more height and I didn’t have to spend money on a new, taller candle! The pine cones and sours hid the wine corks well. I set the candle on top, set the whole bowl on top of a simple green placemat and voila!

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A very simple and festive centerpiece! I like that it is small so it doesn’t take up a lot of space on my table. Success!

I love that both of these took less than 10 minutes and it was super inexpensive since I had most of the items already.

Happy Hump Day! One day closer to Christmas! 🙂

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I was in such a Christmas-y mood that I chose a holiday-inspired outfit for school today.

Cardigan: Express

Button-Down: Express

Pin-striped pants: Express

Pumps: Maurices

Necklace: Maurices

Ornament Overload

When I walked into the kitchen this morning, my husband already had the curtains open to our back deck and I stopped dead in my tracks. The sunrise was absolutely mind blowing! Here’s an (unedited) picture I took:

How can your day not be good when you see this first thing? Such a beautiful beginning!

Christmas Ornaments

Ho ho ho! Our halls are decked! The tree is lit! And most importantly, the mistletoe is hung 🙂

I spent nearly all day Saturday packing up most of my fall decorations (I left a few out for our Thanksgiving meal) and pulled out my three huge tubs full of Christmas decorations. I blasted some Christmas music and got to work!

Since Justin and I are going to be traveling during our entire Christmas break, our tree is pathetically small. We just have a 3′ fake tree that I got for $7 from a yard sale. Needless to say, we didn’t hang many ornaments before the tree was full. I get ornaments on sale after Christmas and I had a ton left that didn’t fit on the tree. I still wanted to use them so I got creative with places to hang them!

First up was the banister by our staircase. Since we have a split level, the top banister is actually a “wall” in our living room. I wrapped it in fake garland (which I got for $2 from a thrift store!) and used fishing line to hang the ornaments in between each post. I hung them at different heights and alternated different patterns/textures. It was simple and I really like the way it turned out!

  

Next up was a decorative window that I have hung over a couch. The window is plain white so I used my neon-bright ornaments to pops of color. Again, I hung them with fishing line and lightly taped the fishing line to the top of the window so it was out of sight. Took about 15 minutes and was super easy. I love the result!

Lastly, I took silver and dark bluish-grey ornaments and hung them in a “pyramid” in my bathroom using fishing line. We just have a simple paper shade covering that window so the ornaments dressed it up nicely. The ornaments matched my color scheme perfectly so it was a subtle Christmas touch. I added a strand of the $2 fake garland to complete the look.

All three ideas were very easy and extremely inexpensive. It took about an hour total and cost under $20 (I cannot stress enough the importance of planning ahead and buying Christmas stuff after Christmas! Saves you SO much money!) I love the simplicity of each decoration but they come together to give the house a nice festive feel. Yay!

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Today I rolled out of bed tired and groggy but I decided to “dress for success” to wake me up and get me in the work mindset. Only one more workday until break!

Jacket: Frenchi

Tank: Express

Skirt: New York & Co.

Tights: Express

Pumps: Maurices

Bracelet set: Express

Earrings: Lia Sophia

Belt: Outlooks (came attached to a pair of capris)