Quick Tips for Christmas

 

 

You can tape your Christmas cards to the wall or you can use a 3M poster strip. Position it on the back in the centre of the card.

 

 

Filling a wood bowl with ornaments is a quick and effective way to decorate for the holidays. I added a faux pine branch to mine for a little extra something.

 

 

Dress any candle stand for the holidays by hot gluing a faux pine piece and pinecone to the base.

 

 

These flat-topped candle stands make a perfect place to make a miniature Christmas or winter scene. I chose 4 pieces from my Christmas village collection and, after determining where they should be positioned, hot glued them in place. 

 

 

Some dollar store tea towels are smaller than the tea towels you’ll find in other department
stores, but they can make great substitutes for more expensive cloth napkins. I folded this one in threes so that the embroidered message is front and centre.

(See how to make the sleigh ornament)

Buy a cheap ceramic soap dispenser at the Dollar Tree. Round would work as well as this squared one. Measure, cut and wrap a piece of Christmas window cling around it to create an instant holiday soap dispenser. Then, seal it with waterproof Mod Podge.

 

I took the lazy way out this Christmas. Instead of removing my everyday cushion covers, I just pulled my Christmas themed ones over top. When Christmas is over, pull the holiday covers off and you’re good to go!

 

Because these polyresin ornaments are free-standing, these little birds can be used as place card holders on your holiday table. All I did was print out all the names of family members I expect at my table on a plain sheet of printer paper, picking a font and colour I liked. Leave a couple of spaces between each name.

Next, I cut out each name in the shape of an envelope. Use a small square of two-sided tape to attach the “envelope” to the bird, making sure the “flap” of the envelope looks like it’s being held in the bird’s beak. So cute and family can take home a keepsake ornament!

An easy way to dress up a plain dollar store Christmas sign is to add embellishments to it like this gold pick. It’s so easy to add colour and dimension to a flat sign this way.

See more ideas for embellishing dollar store Christmas signs.

If you’d like to keep your mini lights with the same box they came in, but struggle to fit those strings of round pegs back in the square hole, try wrapping them around the outside of the box. You’ll save a lot of frustration while at the same time keeping the lights from becoming tangled. Mark where they were used on the box lid.

Dress up your ribbon with clear stickers. Use clear-drying glue  to adhere them to wide ribbon. Let dry thoroughly before using the ribbon on a package or for holiday decorating.

Here’s an idea for place card holders that use decorations you may already have on hand. This snowman’s “hands” make the perfect place to insert a name card. Plain cards can be embellished with a bright Christmas sticker.

Ornaments with flat bottoms and that have a bit of weight to them work best, but don’t limit yourself; try other types of ornaments as well, until you find something that works for you. Place names can always be glued to an ornament’s surface. You could let your guests take them home as keepsakes, too.

A few ornaments and a set of ten battery-operated string lights will help to add some Christmas sparkle to your decor.

If you’re using battery-powered lights on your windows and wonder what to do with the battery pack, try this: Use two 3M Command Velcro strips (the kind used to hold pictures on the wall) to secure the battery pack to the inside of the window frame. After hanging the lights, place the first strip on the back of the battery pack, push the second Velcro strip onto the first one, peel the paper off the second strip and push it onto the window frame.

Leaving a battery pack hanging may result in the wires pulling out of it, making your lights unusable. There are enough Velcro strips in a package for the four corners of a frame, so you could potentially hang four battery packs with the same number of strips.

You can add a little pizzazz to any plain wreath hanger by simply using a clip-on decoration like this one I found at Dollar Tree. 

 

Use cardboard gift-card holders from the dollar store to make inexpensive party favours for your Christmas guests. They’re like Christmas crackers, but without the snap! 

An easy way to dress up a plain wreath is to hang an ornament over the wreath’s hanger so that the ornament hangs in the middle of the wreath.

Like those Christmas tissue boxes you can buy right now but don’t want to buy something that will likely last past the season? We started with a simply patterned tissue box in pale green and red stripes and added a few 3D poinsettia stickers to make it Christmas ready.  

With all the holiday-themed stickers available in dollar stores, the possibilities are endless. Design a tissue box to suit your tastes and Christmas decor.

It’s easy to dress up an ordinary candle for Christmas. Just use a seasonal push pin or a lapel pin.

Easily decorate a plain plush stocking by using a Christmas-themed mini clothespin to secure a flat ornament to the cuff.

Don’t throw out those zippered plastic cases that your new sheet sets or blankets came in. They make great places to store other linens. A fleece sheet set came in the one pictured and I’ve been using it as a place to store my Christmas linens ever since. The whole package doesn’t take up much space in my linen closet and tablecloths, napkins, fingertip towels, oven mitts and cushion covers for the Christmas season are all kept together in one place. 

Rather than buying specially designed tissue boxes for the season, make your own using Christmas tape (on the green box) or scrapbook borders. I lucked out and found a booklet of Christmas-themed scrapbook borders by Martha Stewart for only $1.50 at Dollarama. The plainer store brand tissue boxes work best for this purpose as the patterns are less busy.

You know all those paper wine bags you collected last year around this time? Re-purpose some of them into different sized gift bags. Cut them to the height you need, fold the tops down about an inch inside the bag and use a one-hole punch to accommodate a ribbon, rope or cord hanger.

I find that the Slide Seal storage bags are just as good as the more expensive brand and are
terrific for storing everything from small craft pieces to Christmas decorations. Last season, I stored my snowman fridge magnets in a small Slide Seal bag to be sure that the pieces would
stay together and be easily found this year. 

Often, cupcake liners from the dollar store come with decorations to stick in the top of the finished cupcakes. Instead, you can put them in a shot glass to use as appetizer picks. Besides being useful, they’ll help to dress up your buffet table this holiday season.

Use cellophane treat bags as you would basket wrap for small gifts like this mug filled with candy treats. This would make a good party favour, too.Instead of tying the ribbon, I used a mini clothespin decoration to hold it on. 

BONUS TIP – Dollar store ornaments often come in packages wrapped with ribbon. Save that ribbon to use for small projects like this. 

If you’re using battery-powered lights in your decorating this year, you can make the battery box
less conspicuous by wrapping it in a bit of Christmas paper, leaving the end with the switch open, of course. 

Use a small, flat-backed Christmas wreath (I got this one at Dollar Tree) as a candle ring or to accent another decoration, as here. Sit your decoration on a shelf or mantle and let the ribbon ends hang over the edge.

A large pencil case or something similar from the dollar store, is a good place to store small sets of mini lights. Tie a label to the zipper designating the contents. For example: “Mini lights for small tree.”

 

I’ve seen a couple of good ideas for storing Christmas lights so they don’t get tangled. I think this one is among the best and cheapest of them. 

Wrap the lights around a piece of cardboard, cut to fit within a storage box and notched at the
top and bottom to ensure the cords don’t slip off. This bin could probably house at least three sets of mini lights, depending on the length of each set. It was three bucks at Dollarama.

Cut out pictures or other designs from the wrapping paper scattered around the floor Christmas morning to use for scrapbooking Christmas memories. Use them as picture labels or backgrounds for your photos to add an extra layer of memories.

Traditional mistletoe seems to have been ousted by the “why-beat-around-the-bush” kissing ball. I’ve seen these made entirely of glued together pinecones. My version is easier.

Just fill a large plastic ornament with mini pinecones, sprinkle in some Christmas confetti for a little sparkle and use a colorful ribbon for a hanger. 

If you wish, you can tie pieces of greenery into the ribbon before hanging.

A banana tree can be a used as an ornament stand to showcase a favourite ornament.

A single pretty Christmas pick takes on new beauty when highlighted under glass. See more ideas
for using your vases like this.

An easy decorating idea is to hang mini stockings on a wire garland strung along a wall. By adding stick-on numbers, you could easily turn a garland into an advent calendar. I found a variety of mini stockings at Dollar Tree in packages of two.