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Part 3: Scout Secondhand Stores Seasonal Savings

There’s loads of items you can turn into beautiful holiday decorations at thrift stores, consignment shops and secondhand stores.  There’s usually plenty of traditional ornaments, garlands, and holiday figurines on sale, plus candles, Christmas themed linens,  dishes and glassware and decorations for your yard.  This is also a good place to pick up teddy bears and dolls or any other items suggested earlier in this article if you didn’t have them on hand.  

Resale shops almost always have an assortment of baskets for sale.  You can use baskets for a great number of decorating ideas.  Fill them with small wrapped gift boxes, Christmas cards or pinecones and plain red and green ornaments.  Drape holiday patterned  napkins around the basket and fill it with fruit and nuts still in the shell.  Dry orange slices, mix them in a basket with pine needles, cinnamon sticks, and  whole cloves for a fragrant holiday potpourri.  Fill  a basket with old sheet music for Christmas carols or colorful children’s Christmas books.  The ways to use baskets are as varied as the ways to use pinecones when you’re decking your halls this season.

The best part of buying from resale shops?  You’re saving money and you’re being environmentally responsible by recycling items that might have otherwise headed for the landfill.

Part Two: Turn to Mother Nature for Decorating Help

Now that you’ve looked around inside,  take a walk and look for inspiration outdoors.  Collect pine cones, seashells, milkweed pods  or other interesting specimens you find.  Use them as is or add a touch of faux snow, glitter or gold or silver spray paint. 

Pine cones can be used in countless ways.  Fill baskets with them and set them everywhere.  Hang them from the tree or create your own  pine cone wreaths.  Just open up your imagine imagination and the ideas will come.

Go to a Christmas tree lot and see if they will give you (or sell very cheaply)  the branches they’ve cut from the bottom of trees people have purchased.  Line the mantelpiece with pine fronds or use the evergreen branches to trim around door frames.  Not only will the boughs look nice, but they’ll add a rich holiday fragrance to your home.

Part One: Decorate with What You Have

Most of us own some Christmas decorations, even if they’re hand me downs.   When I say decorate with what you already own, though, I’m not just referring to some leftover  ornaments and grandmother’s old nativity set.

Take a look around your house and see what you might easily transform into Christmas decorations.  Do you have any teddy bears, dolls or other toys around?  How about an old wooden sled or red wagon?  Do you own any soft throws or quilts in holiday colors?  Take inventory and see if you have a few Mason jars, clear vases or metal cookie cutters in holiday shapes.  These are all Items you can use to decorate for the season.

Take the sled, sand it down and give it a coat of paint.  If you’re the artistic sort, you could add a simple holiday picture like this one or, for the less talented, use white snowflake stencils on distressed red paint to add a touch of whimsy.  Drape a bit of garland around the sled, add a couple of weighted gaily wrapped faux presents and prop the small vignette in a corner.  It’s an instant touch of  nostalgia and warm feelings.

Seat teddy bears and dolls on window sills and adorn them with winter scarves or sock hats or add a cheery holiday bow.  You can use other toys, like a spinning top, wooden blocks or a jack in the box beneath the Christmas tree.  Use the wooden blocks to spell out a holiday greeting on your fireplace mantel or at a table near your front door.

Fill Mason jars with Christmas-themed hard candies, cranberries, mini ornaments or pine cones and tie the neck with a big holiday bow.  Metal cookie cutters make cute ornaments when they’re hung by a ribbon from the tree.  You can toss a holiday colored throw over a rocker or use a quilt as a tree skirt.

Fill terra cotta pots with sand to make candle holders.  You can paint the pots  gold or silver and wrap the rim with greenery or cover the sand with pine cones.  Use an odd number of pots in varying sizes to create a cheery display on a tabletop.