Easy affordable holiday home decorating ideas

(ARA) - Family, friends and good times - the holidays are here again. While your budget may not be what it was in years past, there's no reason to trim back your holiday decor. All it takes is a little imagination and some inspiration from decorating experts to create fun, affordable holiday decorations. Here are a few holiday decorating ideas to inspire you.

Revive last year's decorations with new colors. You don't need to spend a fortune on store-bought decorations to add a little sparkle to this holiday season. Change the color palette of older ornaments and decorations with a coat of Rust-Oleum Ultra Cover 2X spray paint in colors like Colonial Red, Hunter Green, Key Lime, or Apple Red.

Decorate your entryway for the holidays. In addition to stringing holiday lights, use spray paint to create an impressive pathway to your home's entrance. Paint a wreath silver or gold for a contemporary holiday look. Or add a whimsical touch to patio planters. Use painter's tape to guide you in painting alternating red and white stripes. Your planters will look like candy canes that came straight from the North Pole.

Create a snowman doorstop. Transform a brick or paver into a festive door stop for less than $10. This quick and easy project is a great gift idea you can do with the kids. Thoroughly clean a brick or paver block and paint it with a coat of Rust-Oleum Universal in Gloss Pure White. When dry, give your snowman earmuffs. Hold the brick or paver vertically and glue black puff balls on both sides of the brick. Connect them with a black pipe cleaner across the top to mimic earmuffs. Next, add a face. Draw eyes and a mouth with a marker and glue on a button nose. Tie on a small piece of fabric for a scarf and you have a snowman doorstop.

Handmade crafts are the ultimate customized holiday decor

(ARA) - Here’s another silver lining to the dark economic clouds still on the horizon this holiday season: handmade holiday decorations are not only less costly, they’re perceived as more meaningful as well.

From spending more time with loved ones to an improvement in our overall health, stories abound on the positive side effects of the shaky economy. Increased enthusiasm for handmade items may well be the latest good by-product of troubled economic times.

“Social science experts tell us that tough economic times realign people’s priorities, and we’re certainly seeing that all around us,” says Riddi Kline, vice president, marketing of Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores, a leading craft supplies retailer. “People are placing greater emphasis not just on cost-savings but on the meaningfulness of a decoration or gift. Nothing is more personal and customizable than something you make yourself. And this year, you can find craft ideas to fit every holiday decorating theme.”

Storing Your Special Christmas Decorations

After you’ve spent so much time and effort, and put so much love into your Christmas decorations, you will want to store them and use them year after year – for many years to come. You may even want to eventually hand them down to your grandchildren so that your great-grandchildren can enjoy them.

Unfortunately, some decorations won’t store well. Anything that was made with live materials, such as live foliage can’t be stored, unless that foliage can be removed and replaced each year.

When you are creating your decorations, think about storage and only use materials that can be stored well. Also make sure that pieces of the decorations are attached well.

Wrap each individual decoration in tissue paper. This not only helps protect them, but it also keeps all of the ‘parts’ of each decoration together in the event that they fall off. Glue has gotten stronger and stronger over the years – but it does ‘wear out’ over time.

After wrapping each individual decoration, store them in a big, airtight plastic container if possible. This will keep air and moisture out, but it won’t prevent the ornaments from being affected by heat. Therefore, if your ornaments may suffer from heat, don’t store them outdoors or in attics. Instead, store them in a closet or spare room.

Note that you don’t want your decorations ‘squashed’ by other, heavier decorations. Place your decorations into the container carefully.

You may want to use shoe boxes inside of the larger container for better protection. Some decorations, such as the tree topper, may need its own shoe box. Other smaller decorations can share shoe boxes.

When you drag the Christmas decorations out next holiday season, carefully unwrap each decoration and closely inspect it. Have a hot glue gun and a sewing needle and thread nearby for any needed repairs.

Make Angel Christmas Ornaments

You can easily make angel ornaments for your Christmas tree. This is a very simple project that does not take a lot of time. You can probably make ten angel ornaments in less than two hours, as long as you have the proper materials.

Materials Needed:

· White felt or lace – use 4 inch or 5 inch wide felt or lace and 1 inch felt or lace.

· 1 inch to 2 inch wooden bead or doll face – this is based on how big you want your angel to be.

· Doll hair (unless you used a doll face that had hair – blonde is the typical color)

· Paint (for decorating face if it is not already decorated)

· Gold Glitter glue

· Wire or fishing line

· Gold pipe cleaner or gold colored ring (for halo)

· White sewing thread and sewing needle

· Hot glue gun and glue sticks

· White netting (optional)

· Starch

The body of the angel is made out of the lace or felt. You want to gather the lace or felt until it is full enough for the angels dress. The dress should be triangular. You may want to stuff the inside of the dress to make it appear to be fuller as well. Secure the dress with matching thread.

Don’t skimp on the material used for the angels dress. This is the body of the angel, and you want it to be very full and ‘fluffy.’

One tip of the triangle will be attached to the bead or dolls head. The head is attached with hot glue. If possible, you should also sew the head on for added security.

Once the head is attached and dried, you can use the 1 inch felt or lace to form the collar around the neck of the angel.

This material should match the material that you used for the dress. Secure the neck decoration with thread.

Next, you want to make the wings. These can be made from white netting, felt, or lace. You will need to cut the material in the shape of a butterfly, and the material will most likely need to be starched before attaching it to the angel.

After you’ve cut and starched the wings, you can decorate them with the gold glitter glue. Allow the glue to dry before attaching the wings to the angel. The wings are attached with either hot glue or thread.

The wire or fishing line should be attached to the angel, just above the wings, for use as a hanger. Obviously, it will need to be formed into a loop. Fishing line is ideal for this, as it can be woven through the lace of the body for added security, and it does look better than wire.

Next, if your angel does not already have hair, glue the doll hair to the top of the angels head. Use the paint to decorate the angels face if this is not already done as well. Glue or sew the gold ring or the gold pipe cleaner to the top of the angels head for the halo.

Finally, you can use the gold glitter glue or gold metallic thread to really dress your angel up. Just as you make unique bows and wreaths, your angels should also be uniquely yours.

A great idea is to allow each member of the family to make their own special, unique angel for the tree. You could purchase doll hair that matches the hair of each member of the family if you want to. The kids will love this project, and it allows them to contribute to their families special Christmas.

Tip: If you are not good with paints, you could use fine tip markers to draw the face. Alternately, you can purchase angel doll heads if you don’t want to do the hair and face yourself.

Angel doll heads are suggested for younger kids – and if younger children will be decorating their own angels face, this should be done first – before the head is attached to the body.

Make Velvet Christmas Bows

Don’t underestimate the beauty and power of bows. Bows can be used for a variety of things.

In the wreath instructions, you learned that the bow is the focal point of the wreath, so you should have some idea as to how important bows are to Christmas decorations in general.

Bows are also great as stand alone decorations. They can be used on the branches of the Christmas tree, and a large bow can even be used as a Christmas tree topper.

You need one main material for bows – velvet ribbon. The width of the ribbon can vary, depending on how big or how small you want your bow to be.

You also need some type of material to decorate the bow, and to secure the bow. As with the wreath bow, bows are not tied – they are formed and secured so that they don’t look knotted.

You can follow the same directions for forming the bow as you did for the wreath. Cut your ribbon, form the loops, and secure the loops with another smaller piece of ribbon that is sewed around the center of the loops.

This is where you always start when making Christmas bows – by forming the bow. Only then do you decorate the bow. Bows can be decorated an unlimited number of ways. You can line the edges with glitter. You can put decorations on the ribbons of the bow, and more.

However, bows also need a focal point, and that focal point is the center of the bow – where the loops are secured. In the wreath directions you glued pomegranates in the center of the bow to dress it up. Again, you could dress the center of the bow with any number of different items. What would suit your particular décor?

Bows look great everywhere. Aside from using them on the tree, you can also use them to decorate staircase railings, banisters, lamp posts, and doorways. You could also use a large bow on your front door instead of a wreath.

You can get really creative with your bow making.

You can make different colored bows, using more than one color of ribbon.

You can make multi-looped bows as well by forming more than two loops. Again, you can decorate the bows anyway that you choose – or leave them quite plain for an understated, classic look.

Remember that you will want bows of varying sizes for different uses. Make sure that you purchase ribbon in different widths, as well as in different colors. For gifts, you will want to use poly satin ribbon.

Christmas Craft Supplies You’ll Need

While some decorations will call for special materials, there are some basic supplies that you should have on hand before you get started with your own Christmas Decorations. Here is a checklist:

· Glue, a hot glue gun and glue sticks for the gun.

· Construction Paper and poster board (all colors)

· Scotch Tape (regular and two sided)

· A nice assortment of beads

· Felt cloth and material remnants

· Scissors

· Pencil, crayons, and fine tip markers

· Ruler and compass

· Sewing Needle and Yarn Needle

· Sewing Thread and yarn (white, red, green, gold, silver, blue)

· Paint and brushes


These supplies can be purchased online or at any crafts store. Again, these are basic supplies. Additional supplies may be needed for certain projects. Be sure that you read the information for the project before getting started to make sure that you have all of the needed materials.