There’s Still Time! A Quick & Easy Idea to Decorate Your Tree for Less Than $4

Written by

Viv YappPhotographer
Viv YappPhotographer
Designer/maker based in Bristol.I make handcrafted homeware with Jesmonite, an eco-resin.www.vivyapp.com
updated Apr 30, 2019
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(Image credit: Viv Yapp)

Is it really only two weeks left until Christmas? It seems as though there’s an endless list of things to be done — decorating the house, buying presents, ordering the turkey…no wonder they say Christmas is the most expensive time of the year!

Having said this, I absolutely love Christmas! And decorating the Christmas tree is our favorite thing to do. Last year I spent many hours folding paper geometric shapes (which you can see here), and as soon as they went on the tree I watched my toddler crunch them up in excitement (my heart wept a bit). So this year I wanted to make something less time-consuming.

(Image credit: Viv Yapp)

We took a trip to my local charity shop and picked up a load of old silver baubles for £3 (about $3.78). When we got home, we then laid down the newspaper, chose the paint colors, picked up a paintbrush, and voila!

What You Need

Materials

  • Paint
  • Paintbrush (ideally one with a sharp edge)
  • Baubles (I bought around three dozens from the charity shop)

Instructions

1. Pick the colors of your paint. I first tried this DIY with chalkboard paint but it didn’t stick to the mirror surface of the baubles. I tried again with acrylic paint and it worked.

(Image credit: Viv Yapp)

2. Paint any pattern you would like.

(Image credit: Viv Yapp)

3. Hang them up!

(Image credit: Viv Yapp)

(I couldn’t resist adding the paper geometric shapes back on the tree, although I’ve learned the lesson to put them as high as possible this time).

(Image credit: Viv Yapp)

Have fun decorating!

Viv is one of our fabulous house tour photographers, so check out all of her tours so far.

And be sure to also visit her Instagram page, where her and her (paper ornament-crunching) toddler make some of the cutest darn art pieces together.

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