I watched a kid trying to decorate Her Room using only what was available — paper. She cut the paper in different shapes, strung them together and after she was done, I must admit that the New Look of her room was impressive. That had me thinking . . . if a kid could do this, is there a reason to buy stuff from stores to decorate our houses during the holiday season? Do any of you make your holiday decorations? I never did but this year, I think I will? What of you, guys?
I think making your own decorations makes for real quality family time. This year for Halloween, we made monster out of cereal boxes and construction paper. It was so much fun to create something new. My family really enjoyed it. Since we were in disparate need for money, we could not just go out and buy everything we wanted. Instead we made note of it and tried to make it ourselves. I think for every holiday we will be making our own decorations because it was a lot of fun. I highly recommend it. You'll feel like a kid again!
Growing up, my house was a big "make our own decorations" house. Construction paper pumpkins, Christmas tree ornaments made out of yarn and clothes pins, popcorn lanyards for the tree, etc etc. Granted, a lot of this stuff occurred because I had two siblings in school, so there were a lot of holiday crafts happening at school. That said, there's no reason a lot of your holiday crafts couldn't be done DIY at home. I imagine any place like Michaels, any craft store, could supply you with bare essentials to get going.
I just buy because I don't have kids and this seems more useful as a bonding activity with kids. I'd do it with my nephews if the opportunity presented itself but I think even then we'd only be making a few to accent the already existing decorations instead of doing the whole ensemble. At most we'd maybe do a few complementary pieces but the majority of decorations will most likely still be store bought.
You are absolutely right this is a bonding activity with kids. I have applied this to my niece who was not much familiar with me due to living abroad. When I involved her in her room's decoration she came closer to me and her hesitation disappeared after a short time. This method really works. I love to spend most of my holidays on travel but sometime decorate the house because it is also a refreshing activity.
I just buy holiday decorations, as I don't have any kids myself and others in my family are grown ups or have grown up. I agree though that making them would equate to some quality family time and allows inner creativity to come out. But it sure would be time consuming when there is other stuff to do in preparation and knowing you could simply purchase them. Usually my family only does holiday decorating for Christmas, the main and sometimes sole celebrated holiday of the year between us all (next to Thanksgiving), and it's the tree that is put up and fancied up with ornaments and streamers.
I don't buy, I just reuse some of the old ones and create a few more (i.e. xmas tree decors) using used cardboard boxes, gift wrappers, used ribbons and other stuff lying around the house. There's so many ideas for DIY Christmas decors on the internet. I usually get mine from Pinterest.
eppie ! you gave me a nice suggestion I will get an idea form Pinterest before decorating my room next time. I have a planed it before now I will do it after coming back fromLog In in December because Christmas and New year is coming soon.
My wife sometimes makes simply decorations like paper snowflakes or fall leaves. But for the most part we get our decorations from dollar stores. I really don't like to go too expensive unless I feel like it is worth it.
I don't make my own decorations because I'd be so bad at it! It's endearing when a kid makes decorations but for me it would just be embarrassing I do remember making a lot of crafts when I was a kid though. It was fun to do them and get into the holiday spirit. I hope to do them with my own kids in the future.
It is funny you mention kids. I'm not terribly crafty and I'm not really all that in to decorating for holidays in general. So no, I don't make my own decorations. But now that my kids are getting old enough to do arts and crafts, I let them make stuff and I always put it out. I figure, it is such a short time anyway, and even though most of it looks kind of crappy, it always makes them happy when I put their stuff up. Haha. On the flip side, I pretty much always make my halloween costumes, and they are always pretty good if I do say so myself.
I don't mind doing it from time to time, but you need to be careful with what you are spending on all the supplies because that "money saving" craft project can easily turn into a money pit of sorts. When I first moved out on my own, and was excited to finally decorate my own place for the holidays, I didn't have much of a budget either, so it was straight up Big Lots the whole way through, lol. I did everything on the cheap there, right down to my sad flimsy 5 1/2 ft christmas tree I bought there. I had to be very careful on how I decorated it to make it look "full" but I pulled it off. Then the following year, I scored a great deal on a good christmas tree - I basically got a tree that was normally around $200 for only $35 because I snatched it up like the day or two before christmas when they had everything marked down to almost nothing. I also bought up a bunch of other decorations as well that were dirt cheap and way better than the stuff I had from Big Lots. In fact I think I spent less on the good stuff on sale than what I paid at Big Lots at full price. Aside from christmas, one year my dad and I made a giant wreath out of buckeyes from our neighbors back yard. She used to love it when my friends and I would come over and collect them for fun since we were basically doing her a favor. So my dad got out his drill and some rolls of wire and we drilled and threaded hundreds of buckeyes. then wrapped it around a metal wreath frame and sprayed the whole thing with a shellac to preserve it. It weighed a ton, but it looked incredible when we had it on the door for Halloween.
I just reuse the same lights and decorations that I bought years ago. The artificial Christmas tree and lights from 4 years ago still work so I see no reason to buy anything or make anything.
Making your own holiday decorations is definitely a great way to save money around this time of year. Using the decorations that I have collected from years past and adding them to the little projects that i make throughout the holiday season -- my house is usually very Christmasy. If you are unsure about where to start I recommend avoiding paper chains -- unless you have kids but you can try decorating open pine cones to look like Christmas trees using beads glue and glitter.
The only time I did Holiday Decor was when it was a requirement in one of my classes in grade school. It was pretty fun doing it, but I never got interested in doing it regularly. I'm simply not a DIY guy. I'd rather just buy them and be done with it quick.
