A Cheap Girl's Guide to Making Your Home "Holiday Fancy"

It's no secret that I am cheap. My husband teases me for not buying a shirt because it's $25 dollars. But I only wanted to pay $15! He has way more expensive taste than me, so I guess it's good I'm a cheap-o. If we both had champagne taste, we'd live in a VAN BY THE RIVER (any SNL fans?)

Christmas is no different. Especially due to spending obscene amounts on my godson's Xbox 360 games because that's what he wants, and I have no clue what 11 year olds like other than that. I still want our house to feel warm and inviting, covered from head to toe in glitter and cheer, though. This is where using your resources comes in. My mama didn't raise no fool. So, I got creative. If you've read my wedding post, you know I shit burlap. That wasn't called for, I know. But I really really love me some burlap. Poor S knew there would be burlap incorporated somehow, but he was actually surprised with how everything came together. Last year's Christmas was all red, but I wanted to throw in some sparkle and of course...burlap this year.

First I hit up Cheap-O Craft Heaven, AKA Hobby Lobby. All their Christmas decor is always half off. I bought about 12 glittered berry picks to stick in my burlap topper, mixed with last year's red feather picks and glittered gold:

Seven bucks total, thankyouverymuch.

I cut some of the burlap table runners from the wedding into 5 inch strips and made ribbons for the tree and mantle. I loved it but it needed color. My aunt found holly berry (not to be confused with Halle Berry) wrapped candles at a garage sale and bought them in case I'd be able to use them for weddings. The candle holders were pretty on their own so I ripped the berries off and stuck them in the tree and on the mantle. It added just the right pop of red.


I took to Pinterest for some more ideas. I was inspired by this pin and knew I needed a glittered reindeer in my life. It came out great I think!

Between the canvas and huge container of glitter, I think I paid $10.

 

All this left over glitter could not go to waste, though. Not on my watch! (sorry, I am very passionate about glitter..) So I found this on Pinterest and got to gluing.

Voila! Glitter clothes pins to hold Christmas cards! (And how cute are my friends L and D? They did a photobooth style Christmas card that I just loooooove.)

 

The clothes pins cost me $3 because I bought them at Hobby Lobby, but I'm sure you could find them at the Dollar Store for even less. I had twine left over from the wedding that I used to string it from.

 

 

Another Pinterest inspired project was the stars on the mantle. I fell in love with this:

http://pinterest.com/pin/225250418833609311/

 

and knew I wanted to recreate it. My mom coincidentally had 12 stars just like this sitting in her garage. I asked for a larger and smaller one only to realize they were white. Nothing a little spray paint can't fix.

 

Not a bad comparison huh? Again, I used spray paint I already had and the stars were given to me so this project cost me ZERO DOLLLAAAA!!

 

 

 

So, all in all, my decor cost less than $20 and I am so happy with how it turned out. Sorry for so many Christmas posts lately, but seeing this fellow yesterday kinda put me in the Christmas spirit:

Who knew St. Nick drove an Izuzu?