How to Decorate Your Home for Christmas on a Budget

With exams coming up in the next few weeks we could all use a little bit of holiday spirit. And what better way to celebrate the upcoming holidays than decorating your home… on a budget of course!

The trick to decorating on a budget is to find cheaper alternatives to the normal products that you would buy, and also by creating some DIY decorations. And when it comes to decorations who can do it better than Martha Stewart? This year make some paper snowflakes to decorate your windows, your bedrooms or even your very own tree by following along with Martha Stewart’s guide to decorating with paper snowflakes. These decorations are easy to make, can be custom designed and are budget-friendly; all you need is some paper and a pair of scissors. You can easily make 500 snowflakes for only $4.99 by going to Staples and purchasing regular white printer paper, or you can use whatever paper you find around the house – it doesn’t need to be white.

If you are looking for some budget-friendly lights to decorate around your bedroom or living room or to decorate your Christmas tree if you have purchased one, you can find 10 metres long Christmas string LED lights that range in colours from crisp white to delightful multicoloured at your local Walmart for $13.80 or you can check out Dollar Tree or Dollarama for some cheaper alternatives.

If LED lights are not in your budget this year, don’t worry! There are other ways that you can decorate your Christmas tree or the rooms in your house. One option is decorative paper chains, which are cheap and fun to make. All the materials that you need to make them include a ruler, scissors, construction paper and some tape, all of which you can find on a budget if you don’t already have some. Construction paper is easy to find, you can buy a pad of 100 sheets of different colours for only $2.27 at Walmart, and remember, you only need one sheet of paper to make around four links in your chain. Everything else (the scissors, ruler and tape) can be found at the Dollar Tree, Dollarama, Staples or Walmart.

Another decoration alternative is DIY Clay Ornaments using air-dry clay which is a great budget-friendly option instead of buying the typical ball ornaments. To make clay ornaments you need some air-dry clay, which you can find at Walmart for $13.90 or you can check out the options on Amazon. In addition to the clay, you will need a rolling pin and some cookie cutters, the cookie cutters you can find at Walmart, Amazon, Dollar Tree or Dollarama. If cookie cutters aren’t in your budget you can also create your shapes by drawing the shape on paper, cutting it out and pressing it to the clay before tracing it with a knife. Rolling pins can also be a bit more expensive, so a useful alternative is to use either a wine bottle, an olive oil bottle or any type of rolling pin shape. Just remember if you use a wine bottle or an oil bottle, make sure to wash it first and wrap it in plastic wrap to stop the label from coming off onto your ornaments. Here are some instructions on how to make clay ornaments in five different ways.

And lastly, your decorations wouldn’t be complete without your very own Christmas stockings to hang by the fire, or by the fake fire video on your TV. One perk to making your DIY stockings is that you get to decorate them any way you would like! You can design several different types, from plaid stockings to felt flower stockings to no-sew tassel stockings. The instructions to explain how to make these are easy to follow and the material can be purchased anywhere from Walmart, Amazon, Dollar Tree, Dollarama, etc.

I hope these budget-friendly holiday decorations put you in a great mood and help you push through the upcoming exam season by being surrounded by holiday cheer.