Heirlooms to treasure, or just plain creative family fun — either way, there’s a special magic to Christmas decorations that you make yourself at home, and it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money. Here’s a round-up of patterns and how-to tutorials for frugal holiday decorations that you can make yourself:

Cardboard, glue, tiny pine cones, and scraps of birchbark — topped off with a sprinkle of glitter, the only special craft item you’ll need to do this — create a rustic miniature Christmas village! Kristin Nicholas –”Getting Stitched on the Farm” — gives a clear step-by-step tutorial for making your own.

Snuggle the houses on a landscape of poly fibrefill or quilt batting snow, if you’ve got some on hand, or just drape a white cloth over crumbled balls of newspaper to make a winter landscape to showcase the minature village.

Squawkfox makes soft stuffies in the shape of tiny trees from leftover scraps of fabric. Quick and easy to sew, it’s a great project for anyone just learning to sew — and you can have amazing fun in embellishing the simple stuffed trees with buttons and bows and fabric paints, whatever you have on hand! Download her printable 2-piece pattern and make yourself a whole forest of stuffies!

Popcorn garlands were always a part of Christmas when I was a child, for example. Sometimes we’d have a bag of those big burgundy-red cranberries to string along with the popcorn — beauty! And sometimes the family dog would sneak a snack from the Christmas tree. I still smile at the memories…

Becca spreads the seasonal joy (and festive decorations) outdoors, with molded bird seed treats — pretty wreaths to feed the birds while they decorate the trees in your yard. (These would make a terrific frugal gift for a birdlover, too!)

Tiny pieces of felt, a little stuffing, and a couple of paperclips — that’s all it takes to make these cute ice skates mini-ornaments from a tutorial by Not Quite Vintage (inspired by her grandmother). Add sequins or seed beads for buttons, or whip a bit of colourful embroidery floss up the front edge to look like laces.

Another favourite do-it-yourself Christmas decoration around our place, growing up, was salt dough modelling clay we’d shape like Play-do into stars and trees and angels, bake in the oven until they dried, then add a touch of craft paint and a ribbon for hanging… My salt dough modelling clay recipe is here, if you want to give it a try for yourself.

Maybe paper crafts are more your style?

Design Sponge has the DIY on this clever paper ball ornament — make a whole lot of them from those tag-ends of gift wrapping paper that are too small to use for much else, and dangle from a swagged evergreen garland, or hang them in a window or on your tree.

Want more Christmas paper crafts? You can find instructions for making the best ever 3-d paper snowflake at Cut Out and Keep . (I tell you, forget those paper snowflakes you might have made in kindergarten — this is in a whole other class!)

And if you’re short on time and/or patience, but you still want the snowflake bling, you can always go for this pretty blue snowflake, from the collection of free printables at Canon.

At the price of printer ink, though, I’d be inclined to print out one copy of the pattern and use it as a template for making snowflakes from plain white paper. I’ve done something similar with lightweight cardstock (empty cereal boxes, actually), then used a little thinned-down white glue and glitter to make them into stars…

This year, the holidays are going to be especially tough for a lot of families — so what better time to rediscover the true meaning of the season, sitting down with the kids to create new traditions that have more to do with sharing the moment than with spending hard-earned money at the mall?

Photo: Photos o’ Randomness

As for decorating your place for Halloween on the cheap –

Decorate your home and yard with everyday items and almost-trash, like leftover candle stubs and toilet-paper ghosts, the glossy magazines tell you. Right. Not.

What genius was the first to suggest that lighted candles and paper products could be a safe mix? Now throw in gangs of rambling trick-or-treating kids wearing capes and robes and all manner of flammable costumes? Uh-uh.

Not only that, it has been known to rain on October 31st… So what happens to your elegant glowing lights and drifting ghosts, if it rains? Soggy toilet paper draped over trees. In the dark. Not so chic and clever after all, is it? And you’ll just have to clean it all up the next day…

You can do better, even on a tight budget.

Tips for Frugal Halloween Decorations

Get yourself a pumpkin and make a traditional Jack-o-lantern. If you draw the face on your pumpkin with magic marker, instead of carving into it, you can cook it up later and make a pumpkin pie. How frugal is that?

If the kids want to know why you’re not investing in the latest inflatable three-witches yard art, or strings of flashing ghost lights, just tell them you’re doing your part for the environment. Ninety-nine percent of school-aged kids know more about saving energy than David Susuki does, and they dig it. Get them involved in thinking of other ways to decorate –

• Homemade orange-and-black paper chains looped across the porch railing?
• Watercolour paints to make scarey scenes on the windows?
• Construction paper cut-outs of spooky cats and haunted houses?
• An old white bedsheet pinned up in a shadowy corner of the yard, to spook all your little trick-or-treating visitors when it moves in the slightest breeze?
• …you get the idea.

And if you’re fixed on decorating with Halloween string lights around your home and garden, why not re-purpose the ones you use for Christmas and patio parties? This works especially well if you tend to go with plain white lights (very elegant) — and they’re low-energy, low-heat LED mini-lights, right? Add a few fake spiderwebs (and dangle a few pipe-cleaner spiders, if you’re feeling artsy-crafty)… you’re good to go.

Not quite enough festive Halloween decorating, yet, for your taste?

Decorate your front steps with an over-sized bouquet of dead branches (pick ‘em up when you rake the lawn) in a wide-mouthed container — I like an old stew kettle for this, but use what you’ve got — and tuck in a couple of mini gourds.

Or more of those pipe-cleaner spiders and artifical webs.
Or bits of orange and black ribbon, tied in bows.
Or a photo of your mother-in-law.

Whatever scares you.

Photo: Sylvanfeather

And here’s a bonus idea — you can save time and money, both, if you simply go with more general “seasonal” decorations, and simply add a touch of spooky Halloween goodness for the night itself.

Think of a wreath of colourful autumn leaves, or a harvest-themed display of gourds and pumpkins, or a decorative scarecrow.

Instead of having a box of special Halloween decorations that will be used for a week or so at most, you’ll decorate once — and the decorations will do you for Thanksgiving too!

Why send the kids out to collect Halloween treats in a tacky plastic pumpkin, when there are more attractive treat containers to be found — like these cheerful reusable buckets in felt or painted metal?

Reusable and durable items means that you won’t be shelling out for new treat containers, year after year. And when the kids get too old for trick-or-treating? Get thrifty and recycle!

Re-purpose the buckets as tabletop Halloween decorations, piled high with tiny gourds and autumn leaves, use them to hold the treats that you hand out to neighbourhood ghosties who come to your door, or even put it into play as an ice bucket at a grown-up Halloween party: just slip a plastic container inside to keep everything clean and dry.

These two styles of Halloween buckets are both from The Contemporary Home. Sadly, TCH only serves customers in the UK — but the rest of us can find crafty inspiration in the online shop, even if we can’t shop there!

Make Your Own Halloween Treat Buckets

What about decorating your own bucket with black and orange craft paints and a simple Halloween stencil of a bat or pumpkin or haunted house? Pick up a lightweight metal bucket for just a dollar or two in a discount department store — I see them most often near the vases and artificial flowers — or, for a bit more, your local hardware store or garden centre. Craft paints dry quickly, so you can paint the background first, then take a quick break for a cup of tea — and the bucket will be ready for its decorations.

Want to make your own felt treat buckets, inspired by those Halloween goodies at The Contemporary Home? A bit of trial-and-error with a piece of old newspaper will help you make a simple pattern and get the size of bucket you need. You’ll want to cut one long rectangle of felt to form the sides, a circle for the bottom, and a long skinny strip for the handle. (You might want to use a double layer, if the felt you’re working with is on the thin and flimsy side.) Put the pieces together with fabric glue, then do a quick decorative line of stitching around the seams for strength. Slip in the lid from a plastic container or a couple layers of sturdy cardboard to give shape to the bottom of the bucket.

Another option would be to recycle one of those ice-cream pails that have a handle, and simply cover it with colourful felt or a Halloween-themed fabric. If you use a fabric that will fray at the cut edges, either tuck in the edge and glue it down or leave an extra half-inch and pull out the cross-threads to fray it into a decorative fringe.

Finish off your Halloween treat bucket with seasonal decorations. Cut-out felt shapes of spiders, bats, or a jack-o-lantern bats (as shown), or use stencils and fabric paint. You might even embellish your artwork with bits of string and googley eyes… or customize the treat pails to match the kids’ Halloween costumes… the only limit is your imagination!

Elizabeth, over at the Chic Design Cafe, got me into browsing the Christmas ornaments at West Elm — Not your Grandma’s Christmas ornaments, she says, and right on!

Venetian glass lizards for the Christmas tree, anyone?

Nothing says “Happy Holidays” like an elegant reptile…

Much as I absolutely despise the kabillion pop-ups that plague the Better Homes and Gardens site, I do enjoy some of BHG’s quick-and-easy holiday decorating ideas.

Here, for example, asparagus spears and long green beans make Thanksgiving-theme wrappers for simple pillar candles. It’s all done with a couple of strong elastic bands, and a length of satin ribbon to hide them.

And see that hollowed-out artichoke candle holder?
Very cool.

Grouped together with a few white chrysanthemums (easy to come by this time of year, and good tough flowers that stand up well to handling while you fiddle with your centrepiece), and you’ve got yourself the kind of table decor to make your Thanksgiving dinner guests feel special indeed.

A colourful wreath hand-sewn from sweater remnants gives an eco-friendly twist to a traditional holiday decoration, in one of the more imaginative recycling ideas of the season.

It reminds me a bit of those wreaths made with tied strips of plastic bags that I’ve mentioned before, but only in the sense of an unconventional material used to fill out the basic wire wreath armature — the sweater fabric makes these wreaths so much more warm and friendly!


And while we’re keeping old sweaters out of the landfill and turning them to a festive purpose, why not go for sweater-sewn Christmas stockings, too?

These stockings each have a tiny outside pocket to hold an extra-special small gift.

Round out the woolly winter decor with ball-shaped ornaments bound with colourful yarn — somewhere between a homemade toy for a very pampered cat, and the layer-wrapped gift balls that the Victorians so enjoyed.

All three style of decorations are found in the Eco Accents section at Viva Terra.

Feeling just a little surreal — perhaps it’s the effects of the Post-Tropical Storm Formerly Known as Hurricane Noel that blasted us here in Atlantic Canada last night. Whatever the cause, however, a dose of surrealism cries out for an homage to the art of Salvador Dali.

Take The Persistence of Memory, for example, that MoMa-owned painting better known as “Melting Clocks.”

Ariver of Design offers a lovely selection of clocks inspired by one of Dali’s most famous paintings, like this gold-trimmed languid (Antartidee) Salvador Shelf clock faced with a sky of fluffy clouds.

It’s made of marble resin, a “collector quality material which provides a porcelain-like textured finish and allows for precise results in hand detailing.” The clock is handmade in Italy, with a German-made quartz movement.

For something a bit smaller, the Salvador Dali Museum in St. Peteresburg, Florida, offers a hand-painted melting clock ornament of molded poly-resin fibre.

At 4″ x 2½”, it’s perfect for a Christmas tree or package decoration, or just to dangle where you want to show a bit of “Dalinean flair” on a smaller scale.

The ornament is inspired by the sequel painting, Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory, which is in the museum’s collection.

Oh, and do check out the Spirit of Dali Melting Clock Sculptures in papier mache by Moné Musel.

Whimsical and functional, both!

This one is my favourite — perhaps it’s just as well that that particular sculpture been sold already, to help me resist the temptation for a surrealistic splurge!

No, that’s not a real pumpkin. But that is where this idea came from, a witch-in-a-pumpkin who caught my eye at Victorian Trading Co. (It’s a lantern, it’s a figurine, whichever works for you.) And if the style of this piece looks a bit familiar — yes, it’s by Bethany Lowe Designs, a hand-painted pulp piece with that vintage style they do so well…

Now, I’m not totally crazy about having the word “Halloween” written on the front of the pumpkin, but the whole piece does spark off an idea.

Try this one on for size — a hollowed-out pumpkin for a shadow box!

If you’re at all like certain members of my family (who shall remain nameless to save a blush), sometimes the pumpkin carving gets a bit too excited and there’s an unintended cut — whoops! that ol’ Jack-o-Lantern suddenly loses the whole big space between his nose and his left eyebrow!

So, instead of turning the poor battered pumpkin in to a pie right away, why not keep on cutting and hollow it out for a shadow box to display some Halloween-theme ornaments?

Slip in a few rubber spiders and a bit of faux spider-web from the dollar store, or a tiny black cat figurine, with a few gnarled bare twigs pruned off a hdden part of that shrub you don’t really like much anyway, maybe a few bright autumn leaves…

Voilà!… you’ve got yourself a spooky table-top display for Halloween!

(See, this is why we have to go “window shopping” so often, guys — the crafty ideas are out there everywhere!)

The witch-in-a-pumpkin Halloween light is at the Victorian Trading Company — while supplies last — and if you miss out, there are lots more of those whimsical home decor treats to be enjoyed from Bethany Lowe at TheFind.

Tired of the same-old same-old Thanksgiving decorations?

You can’t go wrong with the classic turkey (or a cocky classic rooster, for that matter), but here’s a fun new twist on the rustic Autumn yard art.

No carving.
No mess.
Reusable for years to come, of course, and very affordable at $11.95 (or less) at Gardeners.com.

Just push these simple iron silhouette pieces — turkey or rooster — head, wings, legs and tail — into a squash or a pumpkin, or any similar large round vegetable, come to that… Instantly, you’ve got an amusing vegetable sculpture to strut its stuff on your front porch or lawn!

Trendy Decorating Ideas to Un-Haunt Your House

Halloween is one of the biggest decorating holidays of the year, second only to Christmas. According to the National Retail Federation, nearly 60 percent of people plan to purchase decorations and 47 percent expect to decorate their home or yard this year. With everyone getting into the Halloween spirit, make your house stand apart from your neighbors’ by keeping in mind this year’s trends.

“Making homes festive with creative Halloween decorations can be easy and fun for everyone from beginners to advanced crafters,” says Susan Atchison, trend expert for Jo-Ann Stores.

“This season, cute is in and creepy is out. Gone are the days of menacing mummies or frightening felines. Cute spiders, goofy monsters and playful witches will be especially hot. Also, décor adorned with sunny and unexpected color pairings such as royal purple mixed with hot green, pink and jack-o’-lantern orange will add extra personality to the inside and outside of your home.”

If you’re in the mood to embrace the charming side of Halloween this year, check out these easy ideas from Jo-Ann Stores to add a playful and creative touch to your un-haunted house -– inside and out:

• Show your trendy side by dressing your table with vibrantly colored place settings that feature friendly spiders made from basic shapes with large animated eyes.
• Accent your mantle with spider votive holders on a yarn table runner to add quirky distinction to party décor.
• For Halloween entertaining, give your guests goofy handmade spider boxes filled with goodies and treats. With wiggle eyes and bright, glittery colors, these little favors are gifts your guests won’t soon forget! (See instructions in sidebar.)
• Greet guests and trick-or-treaters with a festive door wreath made with silly monster and jack-o’-lantern faces in a rainbow of colors.
• Colorful lights aren’t just for Christmas anymore. Use strings of lights to decorate outdoor trees and bushes for Halloween. For a fun, friendly feel, add lively and unexpected hues of green and magenta with traditional orange and blacks to bring fresh life to your outdoor lighting.
• Post unique stakes in the yard featuring cute character cutouts to welcome guests (instead of scaring them away!)
• Let kids make their own personalized treat bags this year by easily stitching two pieces of black felt together with a strip at the top for a handle. Glue on ears, eyes and whiskers to make a black cat or use green and orange felt to create a pumpkin.

For more advice and a variety of the latest indoor and outdoor decorating products and projects for Halloween, stop by your local Jo-Ann fabric and craft store. Courtesy of ARA Content.