Easy Christmas DIY Decor

It’s time to decorate our homes for the holidays! Whether you wait until a day after Thanksgiving, hold out until December 1st, or you’re out of the gate with your trees after Halloween, I’ve got some ideas for easy Christmas DIY decor. These tips will help save you some money on decorating, so that you can use it for shopping for Christmas gifts! 😄 Come along for my Christmas home tour and discover ideas for your own home:

I love decorating my home for the holidays, but it sure is a lot of work. Lugging the bins down from the garage storage or the basement. Unpacking and scattering it everywhere until I figure out what to do with it. What a mess. I also love browsing the aisles of my nearest home store, oohing and ahhing over the expensive pieces. But my thrifty, frugal mind won’t allow me to purchase certain things that are over my budget. So I’m always trying to be resourceful to find ways to craft or DIY Christmas decor on a budget. Today, I’m going to share with you some budget-friendly ways that I’ve spruced up my home for the holidays. In addition, I’ll share with you some tricks that you can use to stretch your holiday decorating dollar.

Framed Christmas DIY Wall Art:

The first tip I would like to share with you is how to create large, frameable wall art. I like to change out my framed wall art for the season. But large framed art pieces are hard to store and are also expensive to buy. When I spotted these decorative boxes at Dollar tree, I thought they had the right mix of nostalgia and would look perfect as framed art. So I set out to find a frame to fit these cuties.

My tip on finding frames that are affordable: Walmart has a pretty good selection of frames. They are not the best quality but they will do for seasonal décor. Dollar tree typically only has frames as large as 8×10, but these can work in a pinch. For the size of these boxes, I needed a larger frame. So I went to my local Jo-Ann fabrics and used a 50% off regular price coupon. You can also find sales on frames at places like Michaels or use coupons. One tip: take your boxes with you to match up the size, or measure your boxes before you head out to shop. Perfect Christmas DIY Decor!

Here are the finished frames on my wall. You could swap these out for different boxes each year if you wanted. Or use the frame for a different seasonal décor piece later in the year. You could also use wrapping paper or gift bags and frame those for additional ideas.

My Christmas Village DIY:

Now for the story of my Christmas village display. I found an old church as part of a village set at my local Goodwill store. I decided to spray paint it and put glitter on it to make it more contemporary. To add to my collection, I wanted a larger Christmas village, but without the price or hassle of storing it. That’s where Dollar tree came in. They have miniature village displays for $1 each, along with miniature characters and scene accessories.

I picked up four of their miniature houses and spray painted them white to match with my other figurines. I paired these with a white sparkly drop cloth and secondhand village accessories that I found at a Christmas boutique. Now my village is complete. It makes a nice tabletop display for the holidays, and the kids love playing and moving the figurines. Since it wasn’t expensive, I don’t have to worry about things breaking, and storage after the season is simple. In addition, you can place little tea lights underneath the houses and light them up at night.

Christmas DIY Decor Wreaths:

Do you ever see a wreath on Instagram or Pinterest, or in a magazine and think: “I could create that on my own for less!” Well that’s what I did with this bottle brush tree wreath last year. I had an old grapevine wreath hanging around and decided to transform it when inspired by a magazine cover.

All I had to do was literally spray paint the grapevine wreath white, and wire some bottle brush trees that I had on hand to the front of it. Easy peasy. It’s such a simple, contemporary look. You can find bottle brush trees at most stores in packs of three or five at Target or Walmart, or individually at dollar stores. Just choose whichever colors fit your room’s decor. And spray paint can be literally paint you have on hand, or you can find spray paint for under a dollar at Walmart.

Here are a few other wreaths that I have DIYed over the years. Most of the time, I’m inspired by a pretty ribbon or an ornament and then the wreath emerges from there.

Setting a Festive Table: Christmas DIY Decor Tablescape

Every year one of my favorite ways to decorate is setting a Christmas table. I don’t always entertain for the holidays, but I use my table to decorate and show off colorful place settings and decor. You don’t have to have an expensive dining set to make your Christmas table look spectacular. I will show you a few of my Christmas tablescapes and you can see that I’ve simply used things that I had on hand.

This year’s table is still a work in progress. I did use my fine china from my wedding, but I paired it with chargers and placemats from Dollar Tree. I went with a candy cane theme of red and white, so I paired it with striped red and white napkins that I found secondhand at my local Goodwill for $1 each.

The glassware centerpiece display is made from Dollar Tree finds. I arranged several glass pieces by height, and filled the bottom of the glasses with leftover red beads that I had from an old Christmas tree. Next, I topped each one with an LED candle that I had on hand. The mini red and white trees were a Christmas DIY from several years back. To make them, I simply wrapped a cone-shaped foam in some fabric that I liked, secured with hot glue, and topped it with a red ribbon.

To complete this look, I may add some additional greenery and accessories to this table, but I like how it looks for now.

Christmas Tiered Tray Display:

I’ll admit one of the last things I decorate in my house for the holidays is my tiered tray. I was always so jealous of all of the beautiful tiered trays that I would see on Instagram. Wanting to have one of my own, I found the perfect sized tray at Hobby Lobby on sale. Since then, I have been decorating with it for the seasons.

Tiered trays are perfect for holiday snacking and displaying your favorite treats while entertaining for the holidays, But I only use mine for decorating. 😄 One of the misconceptions of tiered trays is that it’s hard to make them look good, and find a little tiny objects that will fit in the tiered tray levels. This was a challenge for me to at first, until I embraced this method: Take all of these small little items that you can’t find a place for and use them on your tray!

To start, I usually place a larger item for the top. I found this baking spirits bright sign at Dollar General for $2 and I loved it in my kitchen. In addition, I found these little mini bottles for Christmas sparkle at the Target dollar spot and added those below. The rest is just leftover greenery, bells, pinecones, and ornaments that I didn’t have a place for. You can literally just scatter those around your tray to fill in the spaces. Another trick is to look for cute ornaments that you like and use those in your tiered tray display. The rest of my ornaments came from Dollar General or Dollar Tree. They kind of fit the theme of bakery and holiday baking, or are simply red and green.

To show off my tiered tray a little more, I made a mini runner out of two plaid placemats (Dollar Tree), and added candles on pillars to either side (also Dollar Tree). As you can see, my tiered tray cost around $10 to put together and use many items that I simply just had on hand.

So you can save your tiered tray for the very end of your Christmas decorating and just throw together items that you don’t have a place for. This is a good spot for those mini signs that are too small to put on your table or on your wall. A lot of people also add a holiday mug or two with some hot chocolate or baking supplies. My tiered trays change a little bit each year, but all have about the same style to them. They are a fun spot to decorate for the seasons.

Decorating Your Christmas Tree: A DIY Approach

Decorating trees can be overwhelming, so I wanted to give you a couple quick tips for what inspires me to decorate my tree. In my living room, I have a very colorful rug, so I used that as a launching point for which ribbon and accessories to buy to decorate my tree. I found bulk ribbon, berries, colorful balls and picks from Walmart, and I bought those to accessorize my tree first. This is what the tree looks like with the colorful mix added. It would be perfect left like this.

However, my family does also adds our own nostalgic ornaments to the tree, and I think that makes each family’s tree unique. So many people are set on having a beautiful, magazine-worthy tree to look at but then it doesn’t feel like home. I am okay with the tacky ornaments here and there, but try to weed out the ones that don’t have any sentimental value and keep the ones that do. You can also put them in the back if you don’t want people to see those tacky, handmade ones that the kids made in preschool. 😂 I’m too sentimental not to add them to the tree.

Here’s our tree this year, all decked out with nostalgic ornaments. We have a colorful tree that allows us to change the lights with an app, which is tons of fun because I can have a different color tree every single day of the season! We purchased this tree at Home Depot last year and love it.

Last year we also added a tree in our basement, and it’s a white flocked tree but also changes to colorful lights. I loved creating the rose gold and white themed ornaments to this tree. I added gold and white elements with a hint of pinky colored garland. This tree looks beautiful lit up at night as well as during the day.

I purchased a lot of my supplies at Michaels for 50% off, and found a few ornaments that fit the color scheme as well. Then I added our family’s ornaments that fit the white or pink theme, such as many of the snowflakes and icicles. The fun thing about Christmas trees is that you can change them up every year or add something new to the mix.

Other places around the house to decorate for Christmas:

In my home office, I add colorful holiday pillows to add a colorful yet whimsical touch to the season. I also use kids art and bottle brush trees placed around bookshelves and table tops.

In the guest bathroom, I swapped out a regular shower curtain, hand towels and mats for holiday versions, and add peppermint-scented soap for the perfect Christmas flair.

Sometimes all it takes is a sign in the corner and a container of pine cones to give off a winter vibe, as I did in our master bath.

In the master bedroom, I purchased an inexpensive buffalo check comforter and use that during the holiday season. It matches with my black sham, so it’s easy to swap out for the seasons. I actually leave this one up until after Valentine’s Day. You can easily find holiday printed comforters for $30 or less. There are some really cute styles out there, and you could use it to dress up a guest room or a kids’ room for Christmas without spending a ton, and most of the styles are washable.

As you can see, there are some easy and inexpensive ways to dress up your home for the holidays. It makes for a fun and festive season when you can walk throughout your home and see all of the Christmas touches. I hope this post has inspired you to find some resourceful ways to decorate this holiday season. Let me know which DIY was your favorite of my holiday home tour in the comments below.

Looking for even more inspiration? A group of friends from Instagram have joined together to create a holiday home tour. Be sure to check out all of their creative holiday décor and their blogs linked below. Thanks for stopping by and have a great holiday season!

–Susan Young, Color Joy Interiors