Friday, December 14, 2012

Christmas Decorating on a budget (how I do this)




I just love this time of year.  My most favorite thing is decorating  for Christmas.  That is what we celebrate in my little creative home.  I love to looking through Magazines for decorating ideas.  I'm always a sucker for Pottery Barns website during this time of year, however,  unfortunately I don't have quite the budget that some of those magazines do.  One of my most favorite magazines to pull ideas out of is call



What I do each year is find pictures of Christmas decorations and I go out to find reasonable duplicates for my favorite layouts that I pulled from website, magazine and sometimes even my own little noggin.   Now this doesn't have to break the piggy bank girls.  A lot of my decorations come from Home Goods, Hobby Lobby, T J Max and I know it's hard to believe but the Dollar Store.


Home Goods and Hobby Lobby always have really great sales prior and after the holidays.  For instance all of my decorations that I picked up there this year where when they were running their 50% off sale.   I even was able to score some really nice quality items at the end of the holiday sales and if I can remember correctly two of the items I got for 75% off.   That's my trick I try not to buy anything full price unless I absolutely love it.  Also this year I found a new source to pick up things it's call Lakeside.com they have really adorable Christmas and other holiday items for a great price and if you are lucky you can even find that they run 50% sales too.

So with out any more delays let's take a tour of my house for this years decorations shall we....


Let's start in the living room.  I decide to keep the decoration simple this year.  I choice to mix my Christmas decoration within my every day decoration.   I love this idea because I don't have to worry about packing away my every day decoration (and worrying they get broke).


I bought a couple of new items for this room this year.  The pillows you see on the couch I got at Hobby Lobby at there 50% sale I think I snagged them for $10 for each of them.  I just love that store for buying Christmas decorations.   They have a great selection no matter what type of style you are looking for.





Next on our tour is my formal dinning room.   The theme again this year SIMPLE.   I bought a new table cloth at Home Goods (another favorite store to shop for home decor.).   I also picked up the Christmas tree candles they were in the clearance isle.   The hurricane glass candle jar I picked up last year at Kohls it was a great find it was a $80 mark down to $25 it also was in there clearance bin.  My center piece was last year wreath that hung on my Kitchen light.  The poinsettias I had for a long time I picked them up at Michael's a few years back.




Moving onto the Kitchen.   I really didn't decorate too much in here.  I just put a couple items out this year.  I threw a couple ornaments and some picks in my fruit tower to give it a little bit of a festive look.  On my top shelf next to the cabinets I put my favorite Santa that my mother made for me.  She is so talented.   Believe it or not that bottom shelf is a dollar store container for cookies.  I just filled it up with old glass ornaments and then added some holiday picks that I picked up last year from Michaels and Hobby Lobby after Christmas sale.



Now I think that the Family room decoration is where the magic begins.  I decided to redo my shelves and mantel this year.  I just love how they came out.



New items this year the little pipe cleaner trees (from Home Goods), Santa Claus portrait (from Hobby Lobby 50% off),  candle sticks along with Wooden Angel were (Home Goods),  and new stockings this year (from Target)






On the right side of my fireplace this is how I decorated this year.  I purchase a couple new items for the shelves this year.   Those houses you see on the third shelf  I got them at the dollar store.



On the left on my fireplace is another built in shelf the only thing that is new here from last year is the on the second to the top shelf the Santa I picked up from Hobby Lobby when they were running there 50% sale.






This year I had a little helper decorating with me (or should I say for me).  It turned out that when I wanted to get the decorations up this year I caught the flu and it knocked me out for three whole days.   While I was down and out in my little flu induce coma my mother came over and decorated my house for me.   I don't know what I would do with out her.   I love how it all came together this year.

I hope you had fun with your decorating your house this year and that you see that decorating  doesn't have to be expensive.  If you pick up items that you love and you watch for sales and you slowly accumulate these items you will find that this really can be inexpensive.   A few of my decoration came from the dollar store and would you believe those are the decorations that everyone seems to go wild over.