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?

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!

Now here’s a clever idea for a Christmas decoration!

LOVE DOVE is a greeting card which transforms into a hanging decoration. The red heart and white dove from the front of the card pop out and lock together forming the body and the wings of this 3D dove.

The pretty birds are just one of the inventive paper-based designs from Polli’s range of modern Christmas ornaments, designed for tabletop or tree.