Old Crates
7 Holiday Styling Tips To Stretch Your Decor Budget
With the holidays in full swing, last minute preparations are sure to be on everyone’s mind. Here are some quick tips to spruce up your holiday décor without adding more expense to that ever growing holiday budget.
(1) Forage your garden (or your neighbors!) for fruiting plants and textural greens to add to containers indoors and out. Above are holly cuttings, nandina berries and leaflets, and osage orange fruits collected from the nearby woods.
(2) Collect fallen branches or cut your own from plants in your garden with interesting structure, texture, or color. Here, cut white birch limbs have been stacked on sheet moss and incorporated into a door stoop styling. You can add fun and drama to your interior or exterior arrangements by spray painting the branches. Whether traditional holiday colors of white, green, or red fit with your style or metallic hues of gold, silver, or bronze work better with your décor, all are an inexpensive way to spruce up your home and a fun project to do with kids.
(3) Use the containers and vessels you have. You’d be surprise what you can find lying around in your basement or another area of the house. Old crates, outdoor planters, large vases. Anything will do the deed. Above, a combination of an old crate, grape crate, and ceramic outdoor planter were used for winter planting and arrangement. The grape crate is used in the summer for herbs and the outdoor container re-purposed for a winter planted container of which the black mondo grass and variegated holly are used year round.
(4) Incorporate fresh greens where they will be appreciated most. Buying fresh cut greens in bulk or put together in swags or roping can add up very quickly, especially when you are looking at covering all the nooks and crannies of your home. But there is nothing like the real deal. It invokes more than just your sense of sight but your sinuses as well and evergreen tones remind me so much of the holidays. Choose areas with a lot of traffic such as around your door frame. Combine them with lights or other greens to add dimension.
(5) Create your own unique ornaments for you, your friends, and your family. Spices are used so much around the holidays in our favorite meat rubs, classic dishes, and pastries. Why not bring them into our décor. After all they are just as beautiful as anything else and they come from nature! These ornaments were made with white peppercorns, juniper berries, and star anise.
(6) Add permanent botanicals to your arrangements and holiday standards such as decoration for your tree. They are unexpected and useful, especially to fill those holes in a tree or where a limb has broken off. Here, cotton stems add whimsy and texture against the deep greens of a Frasier fir.
(7) Don’t have a mantle to hang your stocking? Make your own by simply finding a cut branch and hanging it from the ceiling with looped ribbon of your choice. Greens, pinecones, and silver bell garland have been added to the white birch branch above for a beautiful wall scene.
Have any quick holiday styling tips you use? I’d love to hear them! Wishing you all the happiest of holidays!