Moar Holiday Decor

Here are the two things I actually spent some cash money on. 

"Dining Room" table display:

Runner - $16.99 at Target. It is snowflakes with embroidery. I just adore it and it is the biggest ticket item I got for decorating. I think it is elegant and neutral enough that I'll get a lot of use out of it with different themes. 

Tree candles - Free from my mom - they lived in a box in her garage for probably 10 years. They are in just plain ol' Ikea candle holders which you can get for only 49 cents (and they flip over to hold tea lights). 

Votive display with nature-y things - $9.99 at Big Lots. I think this was a really great deal! I got three votive holders (which are plain enough that they can be for not the holidays), a display plate (again, neutral and not holiday specific) and then some little glittered pine cones, silver globe ornaments and snow frocked pine floral picks. If I had tried to recreate this all on my own with individual items, I am sure I'd have to spend a lot more than ten bucks. 

Overall, this was the most expensive thing and I had originally planned to only have this one display for the holidays... but, well, raiding my momma's Christmas bins in her garage gave me a lot of free things to work with so I went a little wild. 

BLURRY!! Sorry

Window display:

Candles - I was gifted these candlesticks and got the red candles on the cheap (maybe a $1 each?) at Michael's Craft Store. I ended up having to shave the bottoms of the candles because I bought the wrong diameter but it all worked out.  

Garland and sparkle and lights - I took some plain fake pine tree garland (Mom's, but this is cheap during and especially after the holidays - get that shit on sale, dudes) and embellished it with a bunch of cheap/free things which ended up looking really nice. I bought the red, white and silver lights for around $6 at Target (I will defs be using them again because they are really pretty). Then I took a collection of glittered pine cones & sticks and placed those throughout. I got a long strand of silver beads for $1 and also put that with the garland. 

I went a little over budget on this display, I really only wanted to buy the candles (since I had the glittered nature-y things already for free and have other xmas lights) but I really couldn't resist buying the special lights - they really made the whole thing special and I don't regret it as I've gotten a lot of enjoyment out of this display. Just goes to show how easy it is to a. overspend at Target and b. overspend in general on holiday decorations. 

CLOSE

Get Your Holiday Decor On

I decorated my apartment for Christmas this year and I tried to be as cheap as possible. I bought only a couple things and I am going to try and document some of them in a few posts (but as with most of my blogging plans, I'll get lazy and forget slash need to be cryptic and share half emotions and animal pictures with the ether).

My philosophy for holiday decorating is: reuse things you already have and steal from your mom.

My overall color scheme for this year is red & silver. I tried to incorporate silver bells and some glittered natural elements, as well, as a running theme.

This is the centerpiece for my coffee table (instagramed, of course):

Glass bowl: 50% off at thrift store - $4, will become either a centerpiece, fruit bowl or something post holidays.
Silver strands: Tinsel (saw this for $1 at rite aid) but I took this from my mom who probably bought it at a post-christmas sale for like a nickel.
Ornaments: Already had these from several years ago. I bought a set of red & gold ones that have a whole bunch of different shapes (globes, hearts, stars, etc); some smooth others textured and they are also an assortment of matte and shiny finishes. Probably one of the best xmas decoration buys I've ever made because I can pick out just one shape, color, style etc and build a whole theme on it. For this, I just picked out matte and shiny red globes.

This is an example of how I modified all the candles around my apartment to be holiday themed (instagramed, again).

Usually this candle has shells around its base, but I decided to take those glass rock thingers you put in flowers and crap like that and add tiny jingle bells to the mix. Again, this was made possible by the generous donations of my mom's old christmas stuff, but I think this same thing can be accomplished relatively inexpensively. This would work especially well if you already have decorative displays with these pebble things - just add jingle and BAM! HOLIDAZE! I did this for just about all of the candles in my apartment - I thought it added some nice continuity across the rooms. 

MOAR LATER IF I DON'T GET LAZY AND/OR FORGET.