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You don’t need to spend a fortune to make your home look festive during the holidays, and in fact you’re better off making savings here so that you can focus more of your budget on other important elements, like gifts and food.
We’ve put together some tips to help you achieve an amazingly elegant decorative setup with options that are affordable or even free!
Use nature to supply the materials for your centerpiece
You don’t have to splash out on a store-bought centerpiece created with synthetic materials when there are so many natural elements you can bring together to make your own, without paying a penny for the privilege.
Trimmings from evergreen trees and bushes in the garden combined with clean, used tin cans and a candle in a jar can make a great DIY centerpiece.
Just make sure that if you do use natural materials, you check them for any little critters that might be lurking onboard. You don’t want the main course to be ruined by a creepy crawly coming out to say hello.
Reuse ribbons from past gifts
Ribbons are an incredibly versatile decorative product, and there’s no point buying a new roll every year to jazz up your home for the holidays.
It’s better to keep any of the ribbons that you and your family receive on gifts each year, as these can be repurposed to decorate various rooms and spaces during the festive season, which is ideal if you’re aiming to save money.
For instance, wrapping the banisters and handrails of a stairway in ribbons will bring some glamor to this often overlooked domestic thoroughfare.
Transform greetings cards into decorations
Many of us receive lots of cards from friends and family members to pass on their season’s greetings. Rather than popping these on a side or mantelpiece without any thought, you can turn them into more of a talking point.
For example, you could print out free Christmas eCards and string them across the ceiling of your living room, or attach them to a ribbon (our old friend) and stick them to the back of an internal door so that they cascade pleasingly downwards.
Use gifts to add to the ambience
It’s normal to pile gifts in one place, whether that’s beneath the tree or in stockings hanging from the mantelpiece. However, the wrapping on gifts is a decoration in its own right, and so you’ve got the opportunity to use these objects as eye-catching additions to different parts of the home.
Plus if you position gifts in various places where they’ll be in line of sight to visitors, there’s also an element of fun that comes with people trying to find the items that are intended for them. Kids will be blown away by this treasure hunt aspect, and adults will secretly dig it too.
Transform unworn holiday sweaters into cushion covers
The novelty sweater is a popular garment in the winter, and yet this is also a trend that falls in and out of fashion quite regularly. If you’ve got older, unwanted or imperfect holiday sweaters clogging up your drawers, why not transform them into festive cushion covers that can decorate your furniture?
You’ll need to be a dab hand with a sewing machine or a needle and thread, but if that’s a skill set you possess, it won’t take much to make the switch.
Inexpensive LED light strings add instant holiday magic to any area
You don’t need to spend hours working meticulously with lots of different materials to get the best seasonal look in your home. All you need is a few strings of interconnected LED lights, whether powered from a wall socket or an integrated battery pack, to add sparkle to unloved spaces.
These can be draped or taped to almost anything, but for a flexible and portable decoration, stuffing lights into a transparent or translucent glass vase or terrarium will be suitable.
Thrift stores are your friend
If you want to buy holiday decorations but you don’t want to pay full price for them, your local thrift store will be a brilliant place to find pre-loved products that are perfect for this occasion.
In the run-up to Christmas, outlets like this tend to pivot towards stocking second hand decorations and other items at a significant discount, so don’t be dissuaded by any high-falutin sensibilities you might hold. You need to remember that snapping up used items is also more sustainable than buying new equivalents year on year.
Final thoughts
Don’t get too caught up in the decorating craze, and keep a modest budget in mind, so that what you end up creating is both unique as well as affordable. Also remember that social media is a great place to look for decoration inspiration!
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