Christmas On A Budget For 2014!

For Christmas 2013, I didn't do any decorating.  I did put some decorations on my front porch, but I didn't put my tree up.  I just wasn't into it last year.  But for Christmas 2014, I decided to put my tree up.  My nephew has helped me to decorate the inside and outside of my house for the past three Christmases.  But he is now off to college so I'm back to doing it myself.  Since I'm a few years older and my joints a lot stiffer, I decided to scale back my decorations.  I wanted to keep it simple.  I love the beauty of all the decorations, but I don't like having to dismantle everything and put it back in the storage bins that have to go up my attic ladder.  I also didn't want to spend any extra money.  I have tons of ornaments and other Christmas decorations.  I decided to try different colors this season.  At the end of the 2012 Christmas season, my nephew and I purchased ornaments that were marked down 50 to 80 percent off the original price.  I purchased ornaments that were teal, turquoise, gold, and green (but not the typical Christmas green).  I wove gold and turquoise ribbons through the tree.  I found a peacock to top the tree off.  Here are the results:

I have a several friends who are interior designers and they always reinvent their spaces every Christmas.  So, I've tried to do a different design on my fireplace mantel each year when I decorate.  I did buy a few things, but somethings I bought very inexpensively.  The ornaments on the mirror are 3-D stickers purchased a Big Lots for $4.00!!  I purchased them not knowing how I would use them.  I remembered that I had a mirror in my garage, so I pulled the mirror out and placed the stickers on the mirror.  I took the teal, turquoise, gold, and green ornaments and did several groups of five ornaments to decorate the mantel.  

I love my African-American Nutcrackers!  I purchased them at Kroger's.

Because my living room is small (15 ft by 17 ft), I don't really like to put a lot of decorations throughout the space.  I did that one year and it was Christmas overload.  I kept with the ornament theme and placed clusters of ornaments on my end tables and placed ornaments in a crystal bowl on the coffee table.

I am not crazy about the Christmas pillows on my couch.  I couldn't use the red reindeer ones I already have because they just didn't look good with the color theme for this year.  I found these pillows at the At Home store in Little Rock.  I didn't realize how difficult it would be to find Christmas pillows with blue in them.

Now for the outside space.  For past Christmases, I went nuts with net lights.  I have about 32 shrubs in my yard and I had net lights placed on all of those shrubs.  It was beautiful, but a lot of work.  I decided to scale back my outdoor decorating and limit it to the front porch.  I purchased the snowflakes at Dollar Tree.  I taped them to the front door and windows with double-sided tape.  I purchased new trees to place on either side of the front door because I didn't have a pair of traditional-type trees.  I put the ornament clusters on the trees.  I already had the lighted gift boxes.

I got off pretty easy with my dining room.  I have a lot of red in my dining room so there is very little I need to do with this space to make it say, "Christmas".  The only thing I added was a Christmas Tree sticker on the mirror.  Again, I found the sticker at Big Lots.  I placed it on the mirror for instant decorating.

Unless you want to, you don't have to spend a lot of money on your Christmas decorations.  Check out your local dollar stores and Big Lots (if you have one in your city).

Merry Christmas!