Frugal Decorations for Any Holiday

As soon as the back-to-school sales are over the stores pull out all there Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations attempting to get us to buy, buy and buy! They want us to stock up on the Christmas lights and Thanksgiving napkin holders! Don't forget all the Halloween spooky decorations! We spend hundreds of dollars on these decorations that next year we will either forget to take out or have already gotten ruined because of the weather or because of our kids! Is it really worth the money to continually buy these decorations that simply get destroyed before we can use them again? The stores hope so. They hope that the weather destroys that 50 dollar wreath you bought last year. They hope you loose your Christmas Stockings. If they are lucky your kids got a hold of your favorite decoration and either broke it or colored on it so you will have to buy a new one!

I say free yourself from the fees and fines of buying decorations year after year and get in touch with your creative side! Surprisingly if you have the time you can make some absolutely beautiful items from things you just find around your house or you might have to make a run to the craft store to get all the necessary items. There are fun ways to enjoy the holidays without adding one my stress to your bank account. Plus if you have kids and especially around the Christmas holiday when they have the weeks off from school making Holiday decorations can chill out the little excited children who are just way too excited.

The Internet. This is your best friend when it comes to crafts! Especially holiday crafts! You should be able to find some many craft projects that you won't even know what to do with yourself. I personally really like that familyfun.com website because they have crafts for every age and for every occasion. Plus, most of the crafts don't require you needing to buy to many things from the craft store. They have a lot of crafts that teach kids about recycling what you have around the house such as milk jugs or egg cartons! However, the site also has decorations for the more grown up side of things! However, I also check out other peoples blogs! There are lots of Moms out there that right blogs about the arts and crafts they do with their kids! Usually if one more had success with the craft I know I will have success with the craft!

The Magazines. I love magazines! I like Parents and Parenting. I like Good Housekeeping and pretty much any magazine that has anything to do with what I have to deal with on a day to day basis! Look for magazines that are season specific. For example, if it is close to Christmas look for the Christmas edition! Magazines typically have awesome craft ideas as well as some really unique food ideas for the holidays! I hardly ever find the food ideas on the internet! So magazines are definitely something worth getting and looking through. To save money you can usually look at the magazines at a library and just bring a note pad to quickly jot down the idea from the mag or bring some change to make some copies!

Last but not least The Craft Store and Books. Most craft stores will have classes where you can sign your kids up for a small fee to do a craft for the holiday and guess what unless it says kids only or adults only you can all do it! I like the idea of the whole family doing it because then the kids won't feel strange if the class happens to have a number of adults and you won't feel strange if there are quite a few kids! Plus, its a fun activity to do with your whole family! This is way you don't have to get creative or figure out how much you need to buy of the materials because typically speaking the fee you pay to take the class includes the supplies. Not always but most of the time! Then there are the craft books that are sold at craft stores. These are great tools because you can either buy a book for one season or a book with tons of seasons! Once again you will have to dish out some money to buy these books (they can range from $20 to $40) but you will have something that will last a life time! The books usually have so many ideas that you won't be able to get through them all in one year forget the next year! Most young kids and even some older kids like to make the same decoration each year and you can do that as well as making a new one if you want. So if there are 20 or more decorations for Christmas in the book...think about how many decoration possibilities that is, it is a good number of years! Also, the craft books can typically be found at your library. I know I have had some success finding craft books at the library but just to note the kids crafts are typically in the kids section of the library and the adult crafts are in the regular part of the library so keep that in mind if you go to the library to search.

I would suggest looking and using all of these resources! Also, don't get excited and start buying all the Magazines and Books you can find or printing all the decoration ideas that you think are cute! More than likely you won't use all those! Make a list of ones you would like to do then get realistic, which ones are you really going to have time to do. For example, this Halloween (2009) I probably picked out about 20 different crafts I wanted to do and seeing that Halloween is only two weeks away I only actually did 4 of those crafts! I picked the ones that I really wanted to do and the ones that were going to take the least amount of time and least amount of money and I did those crafts! I am not disappointed that I didn't do more than that because after I made my list of 20 I starred about 5 decorations that I just had to do! I only got to 4 but hey that is ok with me!

Just remember to enjoy making the crafts don't make it a task! If it becomes a task then you will just regress to buying the decorations next year and spending way to much money. Enjoy crafting because it is fun and you don't have to be artsy to do crafts that is what makes them so great! Usually if you can glue, cut and measure the craft can be done!

Now if you do need to or want to by decorations...

For those of us who can't or don't have the time to do the crafts here are some simple tips on buying decorations.

If you are going to buy decorations don't be a sucker! Don't buy before the Holiday buy after! If you are worried that its not going to be there...you are probably right. If you notice, however, from the time they start putting out decorations such as Christmas decorations the stores typically don't have the same decorations for more than a week! That is because they want you to buy it now and not later! The stores don't want you to by that 300 dollar Christmas tree for 75% or 90% off! The big stores want you to want that tree now and buy that tree now! (I am talking about fake trees because I live in Florida and we don't have a good selection of real trees.) So here are my suggestions for buying decorations for the holidays:

If you need or want the decorations NOW! Buy it at a Dollar Store. Go to Dollar General for your tree! That is what we did last year! It was our first year that we needed a tree and to get a decent size tree from the main stores I would of had to pay anywhere from $100 to $400 or more for a 5ft to 6ft tree! The cheapest ones at the stores where the 3ft to 4ft trees which were about $40 to $80 but those are really small trees for a family. So I went shopping and came across the Dollar General where they were selling 5ft trees for 20 bucks! Mind you when we got it home and out of the box you knew why they were selling the tree for 20 bucks because it didn't look real, it was papery and the wires were poky! But it would do for one year because right after Christmas, about a week or two later I went to Target and got a $300+ tree for 90% off! So now we have a beautiful 6ft tree for this year! It was well worth the crappy tree this past year! My point is simple...buy it cheap at a Dollar store and then get it for cheap at a main store on the after Christmas sales.

Shop the after Holiday Sales. Like I mentioned above go to the after Christmas sales as well as all the other after Holiday sales! Those stores want desperately to get rid of those extra items! I usually stock up on Easter stuff like eggs and baskets as well as Thanksgiving decorations such as place mates or napkin holders right after the holiday! Check all the stores! I typically start at Target but that is just because Target has my heart! But all the stores have tons of sales and tons of items that they just need to get rid of! Why pay full price when you can get just as good of items for less...you just have to have some patience! Make sure you check back every couple of weeks until you are sure that everything is gone cause sometimes the store keeps things in the back until one thing has sold and then they pull it out. So its always better to check for a couple of weeks after the Holiday.

Look online. I know, I know this is a forehead slapper! But you would be surprised at how many people don't even think about this! However, be wary of looking before the Holiday cause people tend, just like the stores, to mark up the prices because the demand is higher! Ebay, Craiglist all of those different sites are great! Also, check your major stores websites such as Target or Walmart cause they usually have more of a selection online! Not always though cause sometimes you can find more in the store! I also really like using the Google shopping search engine! It gives you a really clear look at comparable prices! Utilize all tools!

Hopefully, this will help make an educated discussion on buying or making your own Holiday decorations! Don't spend the money that the big wigs want you too! Be smarter than that and get the most for your money! Enjoy doing the crafts with your kids which will give them fond memories of their childhood and buy that Christmas Tree for 75% or 90% off instead and get the cheaper one for the one year. It is only one year and more than likely it won't ruin the Christmas mood especially once you get all the ornaments on the tree! It will feel very homey! Enjoy the Holidays! Hope you enjoyed the blog!