Broke Girl's Guide to Christmas Decor

The Thanksgiving feast has now been digested and it's officially publicly acceptable to start decorating for Christmas. Since this is our first Christmas in our new home (and really the first Christmas I've been able to decorate for) I'm finding myself in quite the Christmas spirit!

I decided to go simple with my wreath, and chose a design that would work all winter long. I had some silver and white spray painted sticks from a previous project and I bound them with baby blue yarn.

Even my kitchen has a tiny bit of festivity! I switched out my chalkboard art to fit the season. I also went green and recycled a toilet paper roll into this sweet little Rudolph. The tutorial is not in English, but it has an amazing picture tutorial.

I also had an amazing Goodwill find of this 8 bit snowman mug! I filled it with candy canes and sat in on my kitchen counter.

Down the blank wall next to the front door, I hung our stockings (with care) that I made a few years ago from Goodwill sweaters. I switched out my leaves for pine needles. For my window bunting I crocheted the most adorable vintage lights. I had not idea what to do for the centerpiece of my wall so I just wrapped a scarf around a foam wreath frame and tied a bit of sheer ribbon to the top. It's not great, but it'll hold the place until I think of something better...It takes time to build an arsenal after all! I decided to test the cats (because the tree isn't temptation enough) and put harder things in the windowsill other than crochet items. I found some adorable tins, including the amazing Hershey General Store one, at Goodwill. I also found the stained glass Santa, wooden snow flake bucket, and the silver star bucket, the last two I stuffed with my crochet pine cones, from Goodwill! It is amazing what you can find there...like a Christmas tree!!! That's right, my Christmas tree (artificial with real lights wrapped around it) came from Goodwill. $35 for lights and all!

 

I topped my tree with a crochet Santa hat that I had laying around from the shop.  We bought a pack of twelve ball ornaments from Dollar Tree to add a bit of shine...which Mischief then knocked off the tree and chased around the house. The hubs and I made cinnamon ornaments too! There are even paw prints for each of the cats. I picked up some clear ornaments from Marshall's and filled one with sand and shells from our honeymoon and another with the decorative flowers from our wedding cake. We also have sand from the exact spot on the beach where the hubs proposed, but we have to track it down before we can put it in an ornament. Somewhere on the tree is also the key from Jesse's bachelor pad. It can be funny to look at our tree sometimes. Only the front third or less is decorated and everything else is completely bare! We know that as time goes on we'll collect more ornaments, so we're trying not to invest in too much meaningless filler right now.

Above our bed, I replaced the silhouette with a snowflake on top of green paper. Across from our bed I hung up a wreath made from coffee filters, if you'd believe it, and tossed up a tiny Christmas tree I made a few years ago. I wish I had thought to write down a tutorial for it! It's pretty simple, though. I rolled a paper plate into a cone, wrapped yarn around it, used a punch on paint chips for the ornaments and lights, and used thread for the string on the lights.

Even my bathroom caught the spirit. When I started planning what I wanted my first home to look like, I always pictured a blue living room. So, when I started buying Christmas things a few years ago, I opted for a lot of blue decorations. Then, we moved into our new home and the walls in the living room were a perfect milk-chocolate shade and we had red and green shade. Red and green. Traditional Christmas colors. That definitely put a kink in my "blue Christmas". However, I've been planning to redecorate my bathroom to have a beach theme. Beaches have blue, right? So I threw up my blue decorations in there! You can't tell from the picture, but that blue bottle is tall.  It's almost as long as my arm! The stick perched inside is spray painted black with silver and blue tinsel. I also hung baby blue crochet snowflakes along the top of the window.

I still have a little bit more to do, like a tree skirt. All of this hard work I've put in, however, will not save me from the headache of cats. I think I mentioned earlier that the Christmas tree has been a bit tempting for the cats?

Mischief is living up to her name. She pulled down the tree and cuddled up under it!

Want to see more of my Christmas inspiration? Check out my Christmas Pinterest board!