Well, they say late is better than never

and due to an extremely busy season, I’m certainly pushing that to the limit this Christmas! LOL

But, even if you have to file these ideas away until next year

they are budget-friendly (as always) and pretty easy to create

so I hope they will find their way to your craft table eventually. 🙂

CREATIVE IDEA NO. 1 – RECYCLED FAIRY

This year’s Christmas theme (themes inspire me!) is “The Lands of the Nutcracker Suite”

and in the LAND OF SNOW, I needed some Snow Fairies.

In 2010, I had fun creating a magical garden (themed) tree

featuring some very sparkly & inexpensive ($1 ea.) silver fairies.

So this year, I’d like to inspire you to consider recycling your decorations to create a new look by combining them.

This recycled fairy became a SNOW Fairy by cutting a slit in a plain white snowflake

and sliding it onto the middle of her body… voila’!  Snow Fairy!

BEFORE

AFTER

CREATIVE IDEA NO. 2 – TREE SKIRT ALTERNATIVE!

When you have a furry child, swiffering is an almost daily chore,

so I’m always trying to find or think of creative alternatives to hide my tree stands…

ones that I can swiffer around easily.

This year, in the room dedicated to the LAND OF THE NUTCRACKER,

I thought I would recycle an old idea I had back in 2012….

and create another Drum Tree Stand Cover.

Here’s the YouTube Tutorial Video:

CREATIVE IDEA NO. 3 -OVERSIZED GUMDROP DECORATIONS

The Kitchen is THE LAND OF SWEETS and

what’s a better holiday sweet than Gumdrops?

But they had to be realistic & budget-friendly!

I found 6″ paper mache eggs (1/2 price – $1.50 ea.) on Hobby Lobby’s website

and once cut, painted & glittered, they were the perfect lightweight gumdrop.

And the best part …. I used the part I cut-away as a decoration too!

You’ll see what I mean once you watch this YouTube tutorial:

If you’ve watched my annual holiday tour video,

you may be wondering why these tutorials are not exactly the same smooth quality.

That’s easy to explain… one of my sons generously creates the tour video for me

(filming on his professional camera, editing, etc.)

and I create my tutorial videos…

with one hand on the project & one holding my phone camera

AND, I’m still learning to edit (obviously!) 😉 LOL

Explains alot, right?  ha ha

But, thank goodness for PAUSE buttons so you can review details a little longer

and please, please send me photos of your finished D.I.Y.s because I’d love to see them!

Email:  eileen@theseasonalhome.com

And by the way, if you haven’t hit the SUBSCRIBE button yet (on my YouTube Channel),

please do because I plan to focus on making more (and better) videos in 2016 and don’t want you to miss out.

Until then, I hope you…

ENJOY THE CREATIVITY!