Decorating for Christmas is one of my favorite things to do! When I was working as a interior designers assistant at Farris Design Studio in Monrovia, I got to decorate a lot of beautiful homes for Christmas time and I’m pretty bummed that I won’t be able to do that this year. Shirley Farris taught me a lot of tips and tricks to give a home an elegant Christmas look. I learned at lot from her as well as my mom and grandma who are also great at decorating.
This year I decided to start early and decorate our apartment in the beginning of November rather than after Thanksgiving because Blake and I will be going home for Christmas. If we had waited until the end of November we would hardly have any time to enjoy our decorated home! I had to explain because I know there are people out there who are totally against decorating for Christmas before Thanksgiving… which I really don’t understand by the way! Why it’s a bad thing to want to enjoy the beauty of Christmas while also giving thanks and eating delicious food during Thanksgiving? I guess everyone is entitled to their own opinion, that doesn’t mean I have to agree though.
Until my mom came to visit and spoiled us with a bunch of Christmas decorations, I thought I would be on a tight budget when it came time to decorate this year. Luckily my mom hooked us up with some great stuff and now our apartment is filled with the essence of pure holiday joy. BUT when I was trying to figure out a cheap alternative to ornaments earlier this month I decided to make a few of my own and it was actually really fun.
Here are the two types of ornaments that I made for my tree this year:
Pine cones with bows
Bows can make anything look pretty! Making beautiful bows is one of the things I learned from Shirley and it is a skill that definitely comes in handy when decorating for Christmas. This is just a simple bow but I may try to blog about how to make more intricate bows soon too!
These were simple to make and also really cute. I bought a bag of cinnamon scented pine cones but they weren’t doing a great job of making the apartment smell like cinnamon and I had no idea where to put them so I turned them into ornaments. All you have to do is hot glue a small piece of twine to the top of the pinecone and tie a bow to it. Super easy, and cheap!
Twine Balls
These were a little more time consuming to make, but it was kind of fun and relaxing. I got a pack of foam balls from the dollar tree and a roll of twine from Michaels then used a hot glue gun to make sure the twine stayed in place as I wrapped it around the foam.
I made the little loop at the top first then added a bit of glue around the loop and continued to add glue as I was wrapping the twine around the foam cylinder.
I hope this post has provided some inspiration for you. Now start decorating!
