Happy Holidays, y’all!!! And so it begins—the countdown to Christmas! Is all your shopping done? Miscellaneous crafts completed? Homemade gifts distributed? Christmas parties attended?
In years past, my Christmas tree has been a bit of a mish-mash of ornaments collected over the years. This year, we decided to go with an outdoorsy, natural, bird-esque theme. To make it more of a challenge, I gave myself a budget of $20 for new ornaments & decorations.
I had several items already in my collection that work quite nicely; little critters for the branches, and we used the red & white glass balls that we already had since they would seem sort of “berry-ish”:
At Hobby Lobby, I picked up some small birds at 50% off ($4/pack of four):
(Behind the cardinal you can see my hand-blown ornament from Springfield Hot Glass—couldn’t leave that off!)
The Hubs & I had an adventure going around town, picking up pinecones from the local parks (FREE!!!). And thanks to Pinterest I learned to bake them for about 30 minutes to kill all the little critters inside of them. I had a large pile of bows already, so I used some craft wire to attach the pinecones to the bows.
Then, of course, another Pinterest project! We made some cinnamon salt dough ornaments using a bird-shaped cookie cutter (59 cents at Hobby Lobby).
One batch of dough will make about 20 ornaments. I put about half on our tree, and used the rest as gifts.
And with so many birds, they really need a place (or two) to sleep….
($1 per house, plus $3 for the wood stain)
But what we REALLY needed was something for the top. Something impressive. Something regal. And…something that cost about $8, because that’s all I had left in my budget.
Meet Bubo. ($7.99 at Gordmans)
And of course, there’s also my new friend Hootie, sent to me by my friend Sarah:
So there she is. Our little tree! With tax, our tree “remodel” came to just over $20!
Later this week we’ll show off some more of the décor, and some homemade Christmas gifts, eh?
well done!!! what made you go theme? we always just throw all the ornaments on their and go for the "ornament debazzlement" look.
ReplyDeletemy take away: there are critters that live in pinecones. wtf kind of critters? i am imagining tiny birds. I seriously hope you are not baking birds. But if you are, there is christmas dinner. or at the very least, an app.
Merry Christmas!!!
My theme motivation was primarily the particular type of ornaments I have. I've been collecting Marvin the Martian, Star Wars, and Eeyore ornaments since I was a teen. In years past, I brushed it off as my tree having a "Christmas in Toyland" theme. But this year, I opened my totes of ornaments and just found myself thinking, "I want a big girl tree this year". I think I'm just growing out of my Marvin & Eeyore phase. I still love Yoda, of course. And there's still one of each of those ornaments tucked in the tree for tradition sake. But I think the rest of the cartoon ornaments will be tucked away until we have kids.
DeleteYes, T... critters. Tiny lil' bugs. No birds. I couldn't kill a bird. I can totes kill a millipede and his thousands of tiny creepy legs.
I love the bird theme ... I love birds period, so it's a great idea for a tree. And well done on the frugalness ... impressive!!
ReplyDeleteThanks! I think I was seduced by all the precious owl ornaments that are in the stores right now. It was SOOOOOO hard to not buy every lil bird ornament I saw. I think I'll continue to grow this theme & just add a couple new ornaments each year.
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