Christmas Decorating Ideas

Christmas Decorating Ideas

This year I decided to challenge myself with new Christmas decorating ideas. I wanted to decorate with a completely different look and spend very little money. I'm pleased to say, I accomplished my goal.

I love using fresh greenery for Christmas decorating, but I wanted a different look for our fireplace mantel, wreaths and table centerpiece. It's easy to purchase new decorations, but I enjoy creating my own. It's chalenging to create a totally different look by repurposing old decorations and using materials from mother nature.

This is how I did it;

I love ornamental grasses, therefore, we have a variety in our yard. In the fall the grasses come to life with plumes. I cut plumes to place in pots for fall decorating, as they dry out the plumes become fluffy, and the faded colors of red and purple remain. Do you see where I'm going with this...........

The plumes became my "new" greenery for this holiday. We cut plumes and placed them in buckets to dry out. For fluffy plumes we placed them outside in the wind, for less fluff, we placed them in the garage to dry out.

About now you are probably thinking, what about allergies? I have allergies, the ornamental grasses bother my skin when I come into contact with them in the yard. However, after the plumes dry out, I don't have any problems.

I laid plumes on a drop cloth in the garage and spray painted them with metallic silver spray paint. Warning, wear gloves when handling the spray painted plumes, your hands will turn silver, but it easily washes off.

To make garland for the fireplace, I laid the plumes out the same way I do greenery and wired them together using 24 gauge wire. The plumes are very light weight and easy to handle. I attached small gold bulbs with wire on the plume garland.

Glass Decoratons

I like the repurposed glass candle holders I made for fall decorating so, I decided to keep them for our holiday decorating. I love how simple and clutter free they look and all the different variations depending on the glass piece used to assemble them. The wine colored candles used for fall decorating fit in well for the holidays and give a little splash of color.

A few dollars were spent on glass containers that hold last years repurposed, handmade Christmas ornaments. I find a lot of glass pieces at Habbitat for Humanities Restores from $.50 - $2.00. The glass Christmas tree was in tact but the smaller tree tops didn't have bottoms, so I found glass cylinders to use as the bottoms.

Christmas Topiary

Topiaries are easy to make and are fantastic for any time of the year. I made a fresh ivy Christmas topiary last year and spray painted with snow. This year the bottoms of our mirrored pumpkins from our fall decorations were used along with fresh ivy, Spanish moss, and sticks from outside. Fresh ivy grows in our yard making it easily available to decorate with.

To make the topiaries; insert a stick inside the bottom of a florist foam shape, cone or ball. Place florist foam in bottom of planter and insert other end of stick into the foam, cover with moss.

Place ivy on the florist foam shape using straight pins or glue gun. For the round topiary, start at the top and work to the bottom of the ball. For the cone topiary, start at the top using smaller ivy leaves, use larger ivy leaves as you work your way down to the bottom of the cone.

Cover stick and pot with drop cloth and spray paint topiaries with metallic silver spray paint. After paint is dry, glaze over the topiary with a burnt umber wash for an aged appearance and cut down on the brightness of the metallic color.

Christmas Wreaths

"Silver and gold, silver and gold. Mean so mush more when I see, silver and gold decorations, on every Christmas tree."

I seemed to be singing this a lot while decorating the fireplace mantel. Especially after I repurposed an old artificial wreath with metallic silver spray paint. I envisioned retro days of the modern home era.

I didn't give the wreath a solid cover of metallic silver spray paint, some of the green still shows through. After drying, I placed last years reporposed hand made gold bulbs on the wreath.

The door wreaths took no time to make with plumes spray painted metallic silver and decorated with pine cones. The plumes were put together with 24 gauge wire and tied at the top with burlap rope.

Plumes placed in vases also look outstanding. Spray paint them any color you want or leave them natural. I placed all natural plumes and two metallic silver plumes inside a purple vase. The natural plumes make a great impact inside colored vases.

I hope you enjoyed my new Christmas Decorating Ideas as much as I did!