We found a great way to create holiday decorations from old (recycled) Christmas or other holiday cards.

First purchase older, unique frames from a resale shop

Then frame attractive holiday cards and group them around your home for decoration. An especially nice look is to use cards that have a place to insert a picture. This type of card becomes a great holiday “mat” to use for framing pictures of your loved ones.

In the photo below (middle frame in the second row), we used a beautiful red, green and gold poinsettias "card mat" to frame the family photo. Placed in a simple silver frame purchased at a resale store for 25 cents, it is a great way to decorate for the holidays OR a memorable and inexpensive gift!

If you happen to be one of those individuals or families that send these kind of photo cards out each year, you can frame each one and begin a memorable holiday tradition for your family.

Using holiday themed stencils (wreaths, poinsettias, snowflakes etc.) and acrylic paint, holiday rugs can be created in minutes for the front door, under kitchen or bathroom sinks, bedside or as gifts for loved ones. This idea can actually be used to create special rugs to match any décor year round.

If you can’t find just the right shade of carpet sample, you can use Rit dye to create an interesting background color for your masterpiece! This rug (see photo, right) was dyed red using 2 packages of Rit dye, and then stenciled with green and gold acrylic paint. What a difference!

Holiday Decorating for Little Divas and Dudes in Training
Around the holidays most resale/thrift stores have a surplus of Christmas decorations or they can even be found at yard sales.

Pick out some inexpensive holiday decorations or even a small tree and some ornaments and allow your child/children to decorate their room. They don’t care if the tree is missing a limb, or an angel’s wing is broken, and this would really get them in the spirit of Christmas without putting lumps of coal in your wallet.

In the picture left, I scored 3 boxes of vintage ornaments for 30-75 cents a box (I may even keep them for myself and give my Diva daughter in training newer ones); a great “Dear Santa” chalkboard ($1) on which she can leave Santa reminder notes; 2 camels for $1; some holiday invitations for 25 cents (she can invite her friends over to see her room when it is fully decorated and clean … in other words sometime next year); and a great angel door knob decoration (partially hidden behind one of the camels) for 25 cents.

In all I spent $4. I will probably pick up a few other inexpensive items and have plenty of holiday decorations for my daughter’s room and the added bonus of 30 minutes to an hour of free time to wrap presents while she's happily busy with her own decorating project!