I love Christmas time. There are so many pretty decorations (excluding those put up in July), time with family, and let’s not forget all the delicious food! Because there can be lots of expenses around Christmas with gifts and traveling, I try to save in other areas. One of the ways is with a beautiful centerpiece for our dining room table! The colors and greenery is perfect for this time of year, it lasts for weeks, and cost me less than $5! You can easily make a similar one.
There is a plant on the bike path near our house with red bark. It isn’t noticeable in the summer when its covered in leaves, but in the winter it is fairly easy to spot. I wish I knew what it was called, but I have absolutely no clue. This can easily be substituted with any taller stems. Ones with berries would be really pretty, too.
I also cut pine boughs from our backyard. I really like these specific ones because the stems are flexible and they lean out of the vase a little. They fill out the arrangement really well. I also used a large, wide mouth vase and about a bag and a half of cranberries.
To make the centerpiece, I trimmed my red branches down to the size and height I wanted. I also trimmed some of the branches off of them. They are about 2 1/2 feet tall. I tied them together because I wanted them to stay in the middle of the centerpiece.
Then I started to fill in around my red branches with pine boughs. I trimmed these down to my desired size as well. I wanted the difference in the height between the red branches and pine boughs to be dramatic. Once the pine boughs were to my liking, I added cranberries all around the sides so the stems are not visible and added water.
I already had the vase, cut the pine boughs from our yard, and got the branches on the bike path, so all I paid for were the cranberries at $1.50 a bag!
And since I had some extra cranberries, I made a smaller centerpiece for our coffee table using a long plate and several tea lights I had laying around.
I made these trees last year from cereal boxes, ribbons, beads, and other materials I had laying around. Dollar store candlesticks add height to some of them. I made them based off of this pin, this one, and this one. The tall one was 2 boxes glued together. Very easy, fun, and free!
I have wreaths for every month and December is no exception. I made this a few years ago and it has held up pretty well. The tutorial can be found here and all it takes is one wire hanger and some ornaments! I added a bow to disguise the hanger top.
We have lots of windows in our living room so to add a little something extra for the holidays, I made some ornament balls from this tutorial. I just got the ornaments from the dollar store and made sure to glue the tops on before stringing them together and adding a bow. I might be remaking these soon and adding more ornaments so they are nice and full like in the tutorial. Obviously we go with a red and gold theme!
That is pretty much it as far as my creativity goes for Christmas. We also have a garland around the french doors between our living room and dining room I got from Menard’s for less than $10 last year and added ribbons, bows, scented pine cones, and other garnishes I picked up at Joann Fabrics. I based it off of this pin, but didn’t get pictures of ours. Sorry! Here are some other pictures of our living room all decorated though!
linking up with Pinned it and Did it and All Things Pretty,