This “Beautiful” Christmas DIY Uses the Most Surprising Thrifted Find (It’s So Smart!)
It’s easy to get carried away with buying Christmas decor and not realize it until your credit card statement arrives. With so many cute things hitting store shelves, it takes some serious restraint to not buy anything and everything in sight. To save a few bucks during the holidays, one Instagrammer found a genius way to repurpose a thrift find into a Christmas tree collar that you can be sure no one else has. And the secret is that your DIY collar is actually a lampshade.
“The idea of using a lampshade as a tree collar was met with a lot of mixed reviews when I shared this last year,” Instagrammer Heidi Samia wrote in a recent caption. “Some people loved it, and some people hated it. I personally love the idea because thinking outside the box and using everyday home decor in different ways can be so much fun.”
She continued, “It’s also a great way to save money if you have a lampshade in a closet somewhere (like I did) that you might not be using, or you can easily thrift one for a fraction of the cost of a traditional tree collar.”
And as she stated later in her caption, this DIY project makes your Christmas tree completely one-of-a-kind!
As you can probably imagine, this hack works best for mini Christmas trees — that is, unless you can find a lampshade large enough to fit around your 6-foot-tall tree. You can either remove the metal arms inside the lampshade that grip the bulb, or keep them where they are and put your tree pot or burlap bag on top once the shade is turned upside down.
You can get even more creative with this DIY and cover a basic white thrifted shade with holiday-themed fabric or even paint it!
Although Heidi may have gotten a bit of hate the first time she posted this hack on Instagram, this time around it’s all love. “I think this is a much better idea than what I typically see in stores. Love it!” one person commented on the post. Another said, “I absolutely love that idea ! It’s beautiful ! What a great way to save some money.”
Most of the other people in the comments section agreed: This DIY is just genius.
So save a few dollars for gifts and opt for a lampshade-turned-Christmas-tree-collar instead of one of those collars you can find in the store. You’ll have a unique piece that’s beautiful and an instant conversation starter.