Festive Decorations on a Budget

Santa Claus is coming to town! That means it’s time to get festive and cover your house in a bed of Christmas magic just like the snow falling all around us. However, when there are presents, Christmas trees, turkeys and all the trimmings to buy, there doesn’t seem to be much left over. Check out our guide to festive decorations on a budget, so you can get creative and celebrate this Christmas for less.

Display your Christmas cards creatively

Love sending Christmas cards but always struggled to find space to put the cards you receive? Instead of covering all your surfaces with Christmas cards until the room is a cluttered mess, and you’re constantly knocking them over to reach other things, how about hang the cards. Simply stitch channels in to a double strip of ribbon, then slide through something that will hold up the cards, such as chop sticks, wire, etc. Then all you need to do is add bulldog clips to help hang your cards. You can hang them in a Christmas tree shape by placing longer sticks at the bottom and then gradually get smaller near the top. This is a fun, organized and alternative way of displaying your Christmas cards.

Branch out

Invite nature in to your home this Christmas by collecting fallen branches from outside, all different shapes and sizes. Display them in a sophisticated simple vase and hang Christmas decorative ornaments from them to create a magical dining table centerpiece. You can even decorate the branches by spraying them silver or gold, or you can even cover them in glitter and make it a fun activity to be shared with the little ones. Now you have a beautiful place to hang things off, make sure that the decorations you choose are delicate to not snap the branches and take away from the delicate elegance of the branches. This is a wonderful and alternative way of decorating at Christmas without burning a hole in your pocket.

Edible decorations

Bake a batch of Christmas biscuits and hang them from candleholders or from a light fitting to create a fun and tasty addition to your festivities. Hang them from brightly colored ribbon such as the primary colors to enhance the fun and quirk of the decoration idea. You can also make edible stained-glass biscuits to hang in your window to project your festive spirit to the outside. Simply bake your biscuits but cut-out shapes in the dough and fill them with crushed boiled sweets. Once baked, the boiled sweets create a transparent surface, commonly used as the windows in ginger bread houses. These look great in the window as the winter light floods in through the stained-glass biscuits.

Festive art

Buy a plain canvas, or for even cheaper, pick up a used canvas from a charity shop and repaint it yourself. Paint on a simple image or use a stencil if you’re not confident enough with your artistic skills. Choose an image that has relation to Christmas, like the outline of a reindeer, Santa hat, or holly. You can make the image realistic or keep it modern by filling your outline with block color. Then you can poke holes in the canvas and feed through fairy lights to create artwork with a Christmassy twist.

Doilies

These classic decorations are very Christmassy due to their similar appearances to snow flakes. They come in a mass variety, and make the perfect addition to your winter wonderland for a small price. You can stitch them together to make a delicate and delightful tablecloth to set the mood for festive celebrations. Pop them over a red material tablecloth to really make them stand out, and encourage the festive spirit by combining Santa’s colors! You can also jazz up plain fairy lights by sliding on doilies to use as frills to create an unusual and pretty form of decoration and lighting.