Xmas Dec Ideas - No Money

Out,_Vile_Jelly

Charity shops have loads of old baubles and festive bits this time of year; also check for old music manuscripts as these make lovely old-fashioned paper chains.

Go for a walk in your nearest park or woodland and avail yourself of free greenery: http://www.whychristmas.com/customs/hollyandivy.shtml

I would spend some of your tenner on cheap tealights.

Doveling

If you have pictures on the walls (and don't mind not seeing them over the festive period) take them down and wrap them in Christmas paper adding a large bow to finish then re-hang.

Paper & Christmas ribbon are cheap, just needs a bit of effort

Quite effective when you have small children or animals as out of reach for little fingers and curious cats.

Plus you don't have to dust round them :rotfl:

*Margaret*

I put a bit of string (or left over gift wrap ribbon) along doors or shelves and hang any Christmas cards I get from them, it looks Christmassy and it doesn't cost me anything. I got my tinsel and bits and bobs from Wilkos this year and it was less than £10.

culpepper

We made all ours from blank white newspaper one year when things were very tight.
It was an old roll end that hubs brought home from work .
We did paper chains and those paper balls that you glue and then unfold to make the ball. Then we used some old binder separator pages to make some card cones to hang on the tree and filled them with sweeties and a card angel (cone with a pipe cleaner halo). We made the wrapping paper from some of the white paper with little shapes stamped on with potato and paint.
Strings of Beads or necklaces hung on plants can look quite pretty if you haven't a tree.
jars painted with acrylic mixed with PVA and then with candles in them is very cosy to look at if you have somewhere safe to stand them away from pets and littlies

determined_new_ms

A few years ago we decided to give up the parts Christmas we didn't like and that included Dec's so gave all ours away. Then unexpectedly we took over custody of our gd (who was 1 at the time) her first xmas with us we got a tree, got it 2nd hand at a cs for a fiver and spent probably a fiver on Decs. This year she is 3 1/2 and into Christmas, but still are very much not! I have been making xmas Decs with her (from now on we do a xmas activity with her each day until xmas day) we've made paper chains out of coloured paper we had in. Currently just finished salt dough Decs, trees stars and hearts, letters j o y to decorate when baked.

We have got holy around the mantle and on shelves, we've had woodland walks and picked long branches to spray silver and put in vases with a few baubles.

there'll be loads of ideas on pintrest which you can make using things at home

[Deleted User]

Buy cheap felt squares online and cut them into trees, stars, snowmen etc. If you can sew by hand you can make some really good decorations.

Prinzessilein

Most of my decorations are handmade.....and the rest come from charity shops/budget supermarkets.

For this year, I would suggest you go to charity and pound shops - and see what you can pick up.

For next year (and future years!) decide what sort of theme you would like for Christmas and start planning NOW!

I decided that wood/straw/natural/homemade was what I wanted.....
I can manage cross-stitch embroidery and so did a few angels, snowmen, robins...and then fixed them onto circles and hearts of felt, and added a piece of ribbon for hanging....in the January sales one year picked up some battery-operated candles, then I spent a few pennies on a length of thick red ribbon, and patiently waited until Autumn, when I went to the park and collected dozens of pine-cones - it doesn't take much crafty-ability to nestle the candles amongst some cones and ribbons! - very festive!......wooden ornaments and straw stars for decorating my mini-tree came fro a budget supermarket.....each year I add a little something else to my Christmas collection!

One other thought....if you have friends you could always suggest that a handmade decoration from them would be appreciated instead of a Christmas Card....I have half a dozen friends and we now each have a little collection of cross-stitched, felt, knitted, crocheted decorations....the real joy of this is that each one has a 'story' and reminds me of who made it!

LameWolf

Prinzessilein wrote: »

One other thought....if you have friends you could always suggest that a handmade decoration from them would be appreciated instead of a Christmas Card....I have half a dozen friends and we now each have a little collection of cross-stitched, felt, knitted, crocheted decorations....the real joy of this is that each one has a 'story' and reminds me of who made it!

That is lovely; and if, like me, you don't have friends who are likely to be into that sort of thing, you could make them for yourself throughout the year, as a way to use up oddments left over from larger craft projects.

VfM4meplse

PasturesNew wrote: »

Put a shout out on a local Facebook group ... most people have got "something left in the bottom of the box" when they'd finished decorating, just because it's stuff they don't like/want any more, or they changed their colour scheme ... a wonky angel here, 3 baubles there, 2 strips of pink tinsel .... you could end up with some hilarious donations.

Along similar lines, I was going to suggest asking via Freecycle. Many of us have decorations we're unlikely to use, and you could acquire quite a stash this way.

thriftwizard

I've just made a whole set of tree decorations from an old moth-eaten red tartan blanket, which I rescued at our local Tip... washed on a 60℃ cotton wash, it felted so it's fairly stiff now (and many of the small holes closed up) & I could cut out shapes (hearts & stars) which I've blanket-stitched round with gold glittery thread. That came from an old needlework box I also rescued, but I often see it for 50p-£1 in charity shops. I might have added some sequins or glittery beads but felt that enough was enough; the "kids" are all in their 20s now! They look very festive, though I say it myself, and could just as easily be made with, say, an old shirt stiffened with paper, or one of the fair-isle type jumpers that Pr!mark were doing a few years back, also felted in the washing machine; a large number of them seem to have ended up that way by accident!

And our lounge decorations have to be fairly restrained, as it's a 12' x 12' room with 8 people (one of them fairly tall) & furniture in it. So I just hang old Christmas postcards round the walls on a piece of red string, using little gold pegs which cost me 99p from The Range a couple of years ago, which I think they're still doing. They don't stick out & get caught in anyone's hair, but look lovely; pretty Christmas cards would work just as well. Add some holly sprigs and pine cones, and you're away for very little outlay.