This time of year always seems to be full of crafting adventures and the necessity of being creative with decorations, baking, and of course presents. Unfortunately, it’s also the time of year where everyone generally spends more money in preparation for such festivities and traveling to see loved ones. So as usual, we are always on the search for less expensive ways to do just about everything, while still ensuring care and attention is given. What I mean is, we don’t want to be those people on Extreme Cheapskates that make presents out of old milk cartons and serve people food out of the dumpster. But we do indeed want to save expenses where we can! So in light of this, we got really creative in wrapping our presents this year. And we did it for FREE!
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| Christmas 2012 |
I had a role of raffia ribbon leftover from last year that we tied on our pickle jars and wanted to utilize that…
We like doing streamlined wrapping so for the paper I wanted something simple. Last year we did solid red paper with white lace for ribbon so I wanted to switch up the colors too. As we all know, wrapping paper is quite costly, even the solid colors, so I started to think outside the box. While at a coffee shop the other day I saw a stack of newspapers and it hit me. I love all things literary, so how perfect would the pages of the Times be to coat the boxes under the tree? So the husband secured a copy of the NYT from the recycling center and I pondered ideas for tags. I had one gift bag in my stash that someone had gifted to us previously and it was perfect to cut into small trees for a pop of color that matched the ribbon. And there you have it – completely free, and rather elegant, gift wrapping! Here’s a picture from last year too as we really liked how it turned out, cheap – just not free.
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| Christmas 2011 |
We also wanted a way to keep all of our Holiday Cards together aside from plastering them on our fridge where we could frequently view them. This has been the most simple solution for corralling cards for any occasion and we have used it from everything from our anniversary, to birthdays, and even my surgery. This time we added a bit of christmas flare! As you receive a card, punch a hole in the top left corner and place it on the binder ring. Tie a ribbon on the ring and place on a hook, the mantle, or the coffee table for easy access.
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| holiday card display |
And we’ve been celebrating the holidays already with some great people and can’t wait to continue with family soon. I always love the elegant parties that are sharply contrasting to the tacky parties and how much fun each can be! Here are some pictures from this years festivities 🙂 Merry Christmas!
