Easy Christmas decorating tips for your home.
Time for the holidays! If you haven’t started Christmas decorating yet or if you need some help on improving the decorations you’ve already put up, we’d like to share some easy Christmas decorating tips.
These Christmas decorating tips are from Real Simple Magazine:
- Flank an Entryway. Give your guests a dramatic welcome: A pair of inexpensive plastic urns from the garden center instantly dress up a front doorway. Place a tall foam cone in each urn, anchor it with sand, then use florist sticks and wire to attach greenery and Christmas balls.
- Make an Easy Table Topper. Buy a garland of greenery (available at garden centers) for Christmas decorating to run down the length of your table. Send your kids out to collect pinecones, and use them as rustic toppers. (You can also buy pinecones at garden or craft stores.)
- Go With a Simple Centerpiece. Another festive idea: Load a simple glass jar or bowl with multiples of the same fruit, nut, or monochromatic ornament. Bowls can be filled with red apples and green baby artichokes—the colors of Christmas—and walnuts. Or do bowls of lemons and limes.
- Create Outdoor Decor. For subtle outdoor Christmas decorating, gather pine cones of various sizes and arrange them in a window box or in pots on your porch, sprinkling the tiniest ones on top. The weatherproof display should last until spring.
- Give the Kids a Holiday Craft. A perfect, zero-supervision craft for kids is making aluminum-foil ring chains. All you need to give them is squares of foil (cut up a roll yourself or buy a box of precut sheets): no scissors, glue, or sparkles.
- Spell Out Your Message. Stencil letters (available at the stationery store) will say it loud and clear. Back some—or all—of the letters with brightly colored construction paper, then attach with a removable adhesive so painted walls go undamaged.
- String Up Some Starlight. Wind a strand of battery-powered fairy lights around a medium Styrofoam ball. Tie it off, then tape the end of the strand to the ceiling or loop it around a curtain rod. Suspend three or four balls of varying sizes together for an even brighter arrangement.
- Set Up a Forest. Decorate a buffet table with a trio of snowy cookie trees. Make a base frosting by beating together six egg whites and 3¾ cups confectioners’ sugar. Spread a thin layer of frosting on a Styrofoam cone, then, working up from the bottom, overlap vanilla wafers (use straight pins to hold them in place until the frosting dries). Use a small sieve to dust each finished tree with confectioners’ sugar. Makes a great edible Christmas decorating project!
- Build a Snowman. Use the same frosting to make a snowman of oranges or clementines. Stack the fruit, holding the pieces together with toothpicks. Add cloves for eyes, peppermint sticks for arms and a nose, licorice for a scarf. The hat is a vanilla wafer and peppermints layered with frosting.
- Make an All-Purpose Display. Streamline seasonal decorating with a mantelpiece tableau that can take you from Thanksgiving to New Year’s. Mix various ivory and pure white candles. If setting up the display for Thanksgiving, tuck wheat around the candles’ bases, adding walnuts here and there. Later, replace with greenery.
- Prop Up Some Art. Blank canvases in assorted shapes make an artful mantelpiece display when wrapped with cheerful ribbons.
Do Something Sweet. Something as simple as glasses and dishes filled with seasonally appropriate candies can make a sweet table topper, especially at dessert time.- Make Christmas Decorating Good Enough to Eat. Bake (or buy) gingerbread men to personalize for your guests. Pipe their names on the cookies and use as gift tags, place cards, or tree trimmings.
- Band Together. Make “ornaments” by wrapping rubber bands in a multitude of colors to form balls (maybe you have a few of these started?). Tie on a bit of ribbon and cord and suspend in your windows.
- Take a Cookie-Cutter Approach. String tin cookie cutters of assorted shapes—such as angels, bells, and stars—on pretty ribbons, then tack them to the window casing.
The Lawhead Team would like to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! Enjoy your Christmas decorating and remember to send a picture in to us so you can win a $50 Gift Card to La Costa Resort and Spa!
