My tree is up and some gifts bought!

I wanted to share a picture of my Christmas tree, I decorated it last night :)


My old tree was nice because it was over 4 feet and bushy enough for my liking. However it was falling apart. So instead of getting the same tree I wanted to try something different. This tree was at Zellers for $9.99, 3 feet. You can tell by the picture it is small but that is ok.

Seeing as it is tiny I covered a box with one of my fleeces and sat it there so its off the floor. The little plate it front is from the Dollerama, I thought it was cute so it got it for our first Christmas. Every year I have put the plate out. You may not notice but there is a small wreath under the tree as well.

I have no garland because we have a cat now, so I placed red beads around the tree and a small set of lights. The tree has no theme really so you will notice a lot of decorations, mostly bulbs. I have at least 5 bells on there, a stocking in front, a snowman, angle in the back, wreath and candy canes. Some of the decorations are old from the 80s! lol

I never really theme my trees and just decorate them any old way.


I did most of my shopping and wrapping very shockingly! Anyways this is my closet in the bedroom, you can see some gifts piled in there. The ones on the vary bottom are for my family and the ones on top are for my boyfriend and a few for me, the cat and our roommate.

I still plan on picking up a few more stocking stuffers and little things, but I am waiting for the next flyer to see if there will be anything worth buying.

I love Christmas, and I am glad I got things wrapped the day I bought them! Now my boyfriend has no idea what could possibly be in there for him :)

Christmas Card Series - Using cards to make gift tags

This is very easy to do and a great way to save money on gift tags. All you do is take a Christmas card and cut whatever part of it off/out that you want to be your tag.

You will need:
- Old Christmas card
- Scissors
- Hole Punch
- Ribbon or String

Step 1) Cut out the picture you want off of the card for your gift tag.





Step 2) Hole punch if your going to be tying it with string or bow. An optional step is to tape it and write (To and From) on the front of the picture.

Step 3) Write who the gift is going to



Step 4) If you are tying the card with ribbon do this or like I stated tape.






And that is it, you have a homemade gift tag. All it Involves is some cutting really and figuring out how it is going on the present.

Reusing Christmas Card Series

Over the years the amount of Christmas cards can really add up. So in this little series I want to start, it is going to be about reusing your Christmas cards for other things around Christmas.

I will do a post every Tuesday and Thursday about my ideas for what you can do. So my final post for this series will be Thursday December 22nd 2011.

In each post I will explain what you need to do and have pictures so you can see how my work turned out.

Please feel free to leave comments and share these ideas with friends and family :)

Christmas Crafts For Your Kids

I enjoy browsing various videos from youtube that show how to do different Christmas crafts. So I wanted to share a few I saw today and enjoyed. As well these are crafts that can be done with your kids.

Glittery Paper Snowflakes



3 Simple And Fun Christmas Crafts For Kids



Christmas Crafts for Preschool Kids



Christmas Crafts for Children | Christmas Tree Project by Cullen's Abc's

What I hate about flyer shopping

Once in a while when I am going through a flyer at Christmas I noticed that one week they will have something on sale, and a week or 2 later that item will go on sale for cheaper. Sometimes I get this gut wrenching feeling because I didn't get the item for cheaper, but doesn't that seem silly?

I think I mostly find it to be an annoyance though. And as the years pass I come to expect each week to have something great for a deal but seeing items go on sale for cheaper always sucks.

I titled this post flyer shopping, though I guess I am not really shopping. I am just browsing the flyer prices. This year my thought is changing though on all of this because I want my shopping done at least a week or 2 before Christmas. I mentioned the shopping crowds in my last post and frankly, I don't do well around huge crowds of people... So it seems like the best thing to do.

Hopefully I won't be a last minute shopper this year!

Every year I have a bad habit of waiting last minute to buy Christmas gifts. I suppose it really doesn't matter when you do it, but it seems the later you wait the busier the stores get with bigger crowds. I do got some Christmas shopping done but I still have a ways to go yet.

The other day I was feeling quite blue so I decided to get off my butt and go to my local Pharmasave. Now you are probably thinking "Why a Pharamsave? What could they possibly sell for Christmas?" I am a flyer shopper, I look at the weekly flyers
usually 2 times to see what is on sale. This week I needed hairspray and I noticed they had Christmas cards 50% off, so I thought "Why not go there!"

Here is the Christmas stuff I picked up:


This week they had Christmas cards 50% off and the Neilson chocolates .79 cents a box! I ended up buying peel and stick tags for the gifts because there is 125 there in total, so I thought that was a decent amount. The marshmallow snowmen and Reese trees are stocking stuffer's.

I know what I am getting for a couple people but I have been waiting for the items to go on sale, however this year I think I would be impressed with myself if the shopping was all done by December 20th or earlier.

It is hard to do because each year a circumstance or change in a buying situation always puts me behind. But here is to hoping this year is better. I know this post has really no meaning with the blog being about affordable gifts and decorations, but I will be posting about myself and what I am doing this year from time to time :)

I'm back!

Well I have not wrote anything on this blog for a whole year, well over a year. Anyhow seeing as the Christmas season is fast approaching, I might as well write to this blog instead of making a new one. I think I forgot about this blog last year (2010) so I never wrote anything.

My goal is to find some more interesting youtube videos to do with Christmas, share gift ideas and just update everyone on what I have been up to.

Tomorrow I will try and post something new to the blog. :)