apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

Oh... and $.69 for 50 ornament hooks (also from RiteAid). So actual money spent was closer to 9 bucks.

Dollar stores and creativity.

Target, naturellement!

This is my first time decorating my own place. Here are some of the things I did...

Pre-lit 6 foot tree from walmart $30. Various red & silver glass balls and red & silver ribbon $1.88 per box/roll of ribbon. The tree is gorgeous and all the glass balls reflect the lights. I love it.

Small glass vases from Michaels (craft store) $1.99 each (they look like tall shot glasses). I put the twigs with fake red, gold and silver berries in them. Looks VERY festive and it was cheap. I think the berry twigs were 50 cents each.

Made a wreath for the front door using the berry twigs and a plain grapevine wreath from wal mart ($4). Hot glued the berries to the wreath, it looks great.

Red & white votive candles in glass holders.. LOTS of them. On sale at Michaels for like 44c each.

Buy styrofoam cones and balls and coat them in glitter. This was cheap too but didn't look so hot so I didn't finish it. Maybe bigger glitter or beads is a better solution.

I also bought grapevine garlands to go over the windows (plan on weaving in more berries and hanging ornaments from them), but they came curled into a spiral and I can't figure out how to straighten them without breaking them haha.

I plan on making stockings for me, my boyfriend and my dog out of recycled sweaters (example here: http://tagsaletales.blogspot.com/2005/11/art-of-recycling-old-sweater.html)

That last link I posted stuck a close parentheses on the end... so it's coming up "page not found." Take off that last parenthesis and it will work. Sorry.

Oriental Trading Company sells blown-glass ornaments by the dozen. I bought a ton of them last year for about $0.25 each, then rethreaded the hangers (they came with ugly gold twine) with cheap blue satin ribbon from Michael's. Total cost: about $25 for 100 ornaments. And they look great.

Odds and ends of different shaped baskets collected over the years, filled with dry moss (inexpensive by the bag at Michael's). You can make it go farther by filling the bottom with crumpled paper and then covering the top with moss. Add three or more (depending on size) very small white birds nestled in the moss, and arrange anywhere in a group. I've got a non-working fireplace, so I put them in front.

I fill the fireplace with 2 bags of pine cones (also available at Michael's and cheap). You can add fresh greens for a wonderful smell and you have an instant holiday arrangement.

Ikea always has great decorations and they are SO cheap! Two years ago I got these really cool wooden "snowflake" lights that look so great hanging in my windows. Even on the 4th floor you can see them from the streets. And I haven't had to replace any bulbs yet!

I just find that their decorations aren't as garish and tacky as some!

Right now they have a 53 piece set for just $12.99 and in your choice of colors! I love that they use a matte finish on some.

(Also, their gift wrap and ribbon will last you hundreds of packages!!!)

Also, Bed Bath & Beyond has some deals, but usually I buy their stuff the weeks after Christmas when it is dirt cheap.

To answer the first question from Max - Jack's is the large dollar store on E. 40th bet. 5th/Madison and W. 39th St. bet. 6th/7th. The one on the West Side is huge and always always crowded. But I love it.

Last year I bough a white tabletop tree at Walgreen's (on sale for about $10) and decorated it with strands of pinkish and orangish beads that looked a bit like mercury glass ($1 a strand at the dollar store) and bright paper origami cranes. Granted, I can't fold those cranes worth a damn and no two looked alike (especially the headless one), but the over all look with the little white lights was nice and I didn't have to worry about losing a lot of $ if the cat destroyed the whole thing while I was at work.

The tree survived so it's back up this year with the white lights and some weird silvery reflective circles-and-rings garland I got at Target. My colors this year are white and silver with a touch of black and chartreuse. I used a black feather boa leftover from halloween and wrapped it around a metal wreath form clipping it here and there with hair pins - tucked some loose white maribou feathers all over and socked it on the door. Black and white may not be for everyone this time of year, but personally, I think it looks stunning (in my artistic-but-broke sort of way).

Never underestimate the power of a bowl full of something glittery -- cheap Xmas balls will do.

Drugstores can be fun, though you have to dig for the good stuff. At Long's (West Coast suburban chain), I got a wooden string of "lights" for $5. Since a lot of our decor is vintage or ethnic toys anyway, its toylike quality fits right in.

If you're bored with Obvious Xmas Stuff (holly, tinsel, fir trees), check out the craft junk at somewhere like Michael's for objects that fit your holiday color scheme but aren't "holiday" themed -- there's one year that I wrapped all the gifts in red and green floral paper. Not a tree or Santa in sight, but it looked like Xmas.

Pine boughs on the mantle or side tables smell fantastic and are cheaper than wreaths (you can even just use the branches you prune from your own tree) and if you thread them with white lights it gives a nice glow. I usually nestle in some pinecones I've spray-painted with metalic gold and add a pillar candle or two. I also love the idea of hanging round glass ornaments from chandeliers, etc (not sure where I saw this, maybe a Crate and Barrel catalog). And never underestimate the bang for the buck of paper snowflakes (you'll turn out a lot prettier than the ones you made as a kid).

Oh -- here's another idea.

Go to a good floral supply store and get a wire wreath form. These come in several sizes and are inexpensive. Spraypaint it to a more chic color than green. I was thinking white, but silver would be good, too. You now have a modernist wreath. You can jazz it up by hanging it with el cheapo miniature ornaments that come in packs at any craft store.

(Now feeling motivated to hit floral supply store and plan seasonal displays...)

In college I used left over Altoid tins to decorate our tiny dorm tree. Years later I still use the same tins, and I've expanded to include homemade ornaments made out of Red Stripe bottle caps and white and red lights. At this point it's pretty much a point of creative pride to use only obviously recycled (yet appropriately colored.textured) materials as ornaments.
I still struggle with a possible tree topper though - any suggestions?

Wende - I love Long's. It was my favorite drugstore while living in Sausalito (the one in Mill Valley was closest). We don't have Michael's here in NYC. I can't think of one particular place here that's similar but we have different "districts" that sell the same things - like the floral district.

One thing I started doing years ago was to buy myself a santa. Not an expensive one, I don't think I've paid more than $10 for any one of them. Now I have 17. I write the year I bought them on the bottom of each one. It's turned out to be a nice collection.

If I take a picture and put it in the URL box will it come up in my name? I wondered how you guys show things and it dawned on me that that was the reason for the URL box. Is that right?

danae - that reminds me of what my mother did once when we were little. We spent one year in a different city and didn't have any ornaments so she saved all those little individual raisin boxes. Then she wrapped each one in gold paper and tied red ribbon around them and hung them on the tree. Um, I wondered why we had to eat so many raisins that year.

Before you hit the floral supply . . .

Here's a wreath from America's Demented South
(my mom and I used to do this every year!)

Start with very pretty fruit, including a pineapple.
Cut it all in half, and dip the open halves in melted paraffin.

On a flat rectangle of green florist foam, pin magnolia leaves to make a flat green background. I think we used upholstery pins. With green wooden florist spikes, nail down that pineapple half in the center of your leaf bed, and arrange your other sealed half-fruits around it, securing them with florist spikes as well.

This wreath is quite beautiful in a Colonial Williamsburg sort of way, and it smells great.

If you're lucky, you have double doors, so you can make two wreaths. I can't believe I don't have a picture of this!

danae
how about something like those Mexican tin stars?
You could buy one - it fits your theme - or
get out the heavy gloves and the tin snips!

Years ago, I took all the huge bright Christmas ads in the paper and started wrapping random boxes with them. Just take them from your cabinets! Mac & cheese works well. I topped them off with some cheap bows and put them all over the place. Very festive and almost free!

Word of warning---cheap can become expensive if you are not careful! Probably because when we moved from my childhood home, my mother left all our hand-blown glass ornaments in the house (and a few years after they moved, I convinced a friend to go to the house to ask the current owners if they still had them!) I have an obsessive attachment to holiday paraphernalia. Consequently, many years ago, I started buying inexpensive decorations, then wound up making them look so adorable that I could not BEAR to toss them at the end of the season. I then had boxes of holiday stuff hidden under the bed. Then, the boxes moved to storage in my building's basement. Now the boxes (and that cool, spare, gold-painted spiral tree I got at a sample sale) are in storage in Long Island City. FIVE YEARS LATER at $300 a month (for about $500 worth of ornaments) I don't even bother going to Queens to get my decorations....and get the leftover cuttings from the Tree Guy, stick them in a vase, tie on some ribbon and call it a day...waiting, I suppose, for the day that I'll have my own house in the country to put up all those decorations I've been guarding all these years! I don't know. Today's NYPost had a blurb that said Ethel Merman moved her decorated Christmas tree to whatever house she lived in for much of her life--it was the first thing she unpacked, even in a hotel--and represented good things to her.

Not that this has anything to do with Christmas but when I moved back to NYC from Sausalito the intent was to go back out there in less than a year. So I put everything into storage. Month after month I paid those storage locker bills and after 5 yrs. I just couldn't take it anymore. I flew out there and unloaded everything. Ironically, about 8 months after that I really DID move back out there and had to start all over again!!

Anne, you would never have moved back if you'd kept the storage locker! It just works that way.

A couple years ago, we got rid of our apartment-sized (skinny) faux tree and random box of cheap ornaments, as part of a plan to stop renting extra storage in the basement ($35/mo). This year, I'm veering toward wishing we had a tree and more decor, but I keep reminding myself:

(1) I'd have to store it.
(2) There's no good spot to put it, unless I want to block (a) all light, (b) a closet door, or (c) an entire much-needed extension outlet.
(3) The cat would knock it over, and I'd have glass shards all over the floor, and the end of the quarter is stressful enough without that.
(4) We never celebrate Xmas at home.
(5) There's no point in decorating for a hypothetical party, as a tree would take up the space needed for two thin friends or one chunky one.

Some days, it's depressing being practical, though!

Oh, I give in! If I ever get any of my to-do list to-done today, I'm then going to cover the front window with tissue-paper snowflakes.

I may even break down and try a tabletop tree. (Okay, it's an excuse to buy more mini ornaments)

I spent less than $8 for my decorations this year at RiteAid: 2 100-bulb strands of lights (white cord, green bulbs) at $1.33 each, 2 15-piece packs of silver and pearl-white 3" diameter ornaments at $1.99 each. (I decorated a piece of driftwood.) A little holiday bling for not much ching. Bonus: not much to store, only 4 small boxes.

But, I'm also considering a silver-and-white ornament wreath--that I saw at Z Gallerie for $19.95--for my front door.

I can't imagine tossing Xmas ornaments!
Or buying new ones for that matter . . .

I've *always* kept a couple boxes of closet space for them...deep dark move-furniture-to-get-there space.

It's either that or only use stuff that birds can eat.

Do many people throw stuff away and buy it again the next year??

I have a big box of Christmas stuff resulting from a ended 12 year relationship that now sits in my parents' attic. That's the reason I've done new things this year and the last - that and the fact that I can decorate as I want without someone harping at at. I'm ashamed to admit I haven't had the guts to sort through that old box of stuff but someday I'll be ready to. In the meanwhile, the cheapo-drugstore decor seems to fit the bill (and the much smaller residence). PS - There should be a guidebook about what to do with old photos, holiday decor, etc. after a break up.

If I take a picture and put it in the URL box will it come up in my name? I wondered how you guys show things and it dawned on me that that was the reason for the URL box. Is that right?

The URL box should allow you to link your name to anything on the Web. So if you upload your photo to an external site (your own or something like Photobucket), yes, you can put that URL in the box and it should give a link to the photo.

I think the holidays are one of the best times to live in a small space, since you can get so much impact with just a little bit of decorating.

Take a cue from retail display, and use a tabletop, the area above cabinets, or the very top of an armoire for a holiday grouping.

No room for a tree? Assemble your favorite ornaments in a bowl or tall cylinder vase.

Silver, winter white and deep brown makes a swanky combo that you can keep up past the 25th... use chestnuts, cinnamon sticks, silver jingle bells (none budget breakers) in various silver and glass containers.

The key is repeating your key color, and amassing your decorations, rather than strewing them all about (which means you'll have to get more stuff for impact). And amass the display in an area you will see as much as possible, so that may mean your bedroom or kitchen.

I've also used those grids of lights (designed for suburban bushes) attached to my window with suction cups for an instant tailored light installation that twinkles behind my solar shades.

And Maxwell is right... a wreath is maybe the best route to go. But it need not be on the outside of your door. And Martha's Wreath book is still hard to beat for original ideas.

Having a party? Splurge on a professionally done flower arrangement. (And/or visit some upscale floral shops to see what the designers are doing).

Oh, and Pier 1 is actually one of my favorite holiday decor resources... plus Pottery Barn (they have sales WAY early in the season) and Michael's.

Or, buy a premade (faux) undecorated wreath and wire your ornament collection to it.

(sorry, now I can't stop...)

One of my favorite holiday decorating stories was when I helped a friend decorate his (gorgeous) house for a big corporate party. The only catch was that because of my work schedule at the time, I could only shop LATE at night, which at the time meant only K-Mart (and in the pre-Martha-chic days!), and we pulled it off anyhow. (Mostly by buying TONS of just a few things... repetition made it chic.)

The moral is: don't overlook ANY source (however humble) when looking for decorations.

Some inexpensive ideas....I bought a cheap hurricane and put white glass marbles (the flattened kind for floral arranging) and put a candle inside and a bow outside...simple, but elegant.

Another candle arrangement idea is to use ribbon candy and make an arrangement with the candy around a pillar candle on a charger or plate. I think that would also look good with the red and white peppermints...cheap, but cute.

Great ideas all.

I also find that frozen, whole cranberries come in handy for Christmas decorating. I fill clear vases with cranberries and water, then add pine branches and place on window ledges, shelves and table-tops. The cranberries look great and last for at least a week in this condition. The pine branches fill my apartment with a great scent.

Soak the grapevine in water overnight; you can then shape it.

i ilke oriental offers

the dollar trees and only a buck have cute ornaments for a 1 dollar apack

Don't know if anyone has said this or not, but save last year's Christmas cards, cut out the front design & a backing on them while leaving room on the top of the design & backing for a small hole (backing- the back of the Christmas card is useful for this, plus if you have the signature of the person who sent it to you- all the better), then glue the design & backing together. Then cut a hole (with a hole punch) in the top of the 'ornament' & run any string you have through it- you can buy pretty holiday colored string, but since I was really poor last year, I just used cinammon flavored & plain white dental floss. I didn't realize how beautiful these would turn out, or how fun they would be to make. I'm using them again this year.

Dear Anne-there is a Michael's in Woodside,Queens on 48th Street near Northern Blvd.It's a crafter's dream destination!