Monday, November 30, 2009

Decorate Your Christmas Tree For Less

One of my favorite traditions over the holidays is decorating the Christmas tree. It is fun and a great thing to do with your family. The good thing about decorating your tree is that you can use some of the same ornaments over and over again. Growing up my family used the same decorations for years, then a couple years ago my parents bought some new balls for the tree and some icecicle decorations, other than that though they still used some of the old ones.

Decorating your tree does not have to be expensive in any way there are ways to get around spending lots of money on decorations and lights. Below I will list some tips that I plan on using this year :)

1) Recycle Old Decorations - if you want a fun activity to do with the kids or if your just very crafty this could be a lot of fun! I have never really recycled ornaments before, but I hope to this year! You can search google, ehow, and youtube for ideas and tutorials on recycling Christmas Decorations.

2) Using The Kids Decorations From School - When I was in elementary school every year around December each classroom would get a Christmas tree. It was up to the teacher and students to decorate the tree only with handmade decorations. After Christmas was over we would all get back the decoration we made to take home. I’m sure most kids would be happy to see their craft from school on the family tree!

3) Shop Around - If you do plan on spending money on decorations be sure to check out thrift shops and garage sales, you never know what you may find. Keep a look at flyers as well to keep up with any sales that may be happening. After Christmas some stores leave decorations on sale for a while, usually marked down, if you can find a store doing that it could be another great way to save money.

4) Research - Be sure to go to your local library, or look online at sites like, google and youtube for more great tips.

Check Out The Videos Below For Some Nice Ornament Ideas:

Christmas Ornaments From Light Bulbs



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Upcycling



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How to Make Christmas Ornaments : How to Recycle Old Christmas Ornaments



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Saturday, November 28, 2009

Check Out This Wonderful Christmas Card Series :)

I spoke with Kristina to make sure I could post a couple of her videos on my blog, graciously she is ok with it. Now I know my blog is suppose to be affordable gift ideas but I wanted to share a few things that Kristina has made for Christmas. She currently has a series going for holiday cards, these cards are quite wonderful, and though it may not be in your own budget to design cards like this I wanted to share the video anyways.

Day 1 - Holiday Card Series - Happy 25 Days of Christmas



Click Here To Go To Video Page On Youtube

Day 2 - Holiday Card Series - Tis the Season, Noel



As you can see those are some really nice cards! Kristina has her card series still going so be sure to check out her other card videos at her channel.

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Kristina's Website

Friday, November 27, 2009

Homemade Christmas Gift Baskets

It can be hard sometimes trying to decide what to get certain people on your Christmas shopping list. I know I have people who say “I don’t want anything” or just “I don’t know” with answers like this it can be hard to decide what will be the best thing to do!

I have never done Christmas Gift Baskets before, but I think it will be a good way to mix and match gifts. I have yet to actually start buying the baskets or the gifts, however in the mean time I have found some cool youtube videos with basket gift ideas!

Check Out The Videos Below:

Rachael Ray Show - Making Gift Baskets



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Website For Cathie And Steve


Holidays Made Easy - Gift Baskets



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Website For Jo