I love the idea of holiday decorating but I hate the idea of spending money on something that is only going to be up for one season. After a few too many hours on Pinterest I was dying to make something festive happen.
I decided the mantle would be the perfect place to start, this is what I started with. (pretty much... I had replaced the "C" with a new one, and added the candle sticks)
I started with the garland. I've seen so many fun tutorials on making these and I wanted to give it a try. I started by searching the house for any scrap fabric or felt. I ended up using felt to hot glue the candy corn triangles together. I kept the triangles uniform my making a paper pattern to cut out all the flags with. The black triangles were also felt and the polka dot fabric was from an old curtain. To connect them all together I ripped a piece of scrap grey fabric about 1.5" wide, then glued down all the triangles on the bottom half of the strip. After they were all glued on I went back and folded and glued down the fabric. It was fast and simple and I didn't have to get out my sewing machine :)
I wanted to stick with a black, white, with hints of color scheme. I stole the tree picture from my bedroom and pulled my other black and white canvas out of a closet. Then I headed outside to gather some branches. I just snuck those into the empty white frame and taped them down on the back inside of the frame. I printed out a crow silhouette and laid it on some black felt to cut out. Then taped it to the branch and a little tape on back to the glass on the frame. The branches really added a nice touch of dimension that I liked a lot. Not too bad for FREE.
After feeling successful on the mantle I decided to spice up my dining room table. This is a room we don't use very often but I have to walk by it all the time. With 4 kids running around decorating has to be strategic... well, unless you like cleaning up glass. I decided to try something that I normally wouldn't do in a more high traffic area in my home.
I used a curtain that I folded under to make the table runner. For the "tree trunks" I wrapped a few vases and a straw dispenser with some white paper and then used a black marker to make it look like an Aspen tree. Then, back outside for some more branches. The flowers were left over from a wreath I made so I thought they might add some nice color.
Total cost for this... $3 if you count the flowers that were used for a different project.
