homemade Christmas ideas

I think most people are in the same boat as me: working on a homemade Christmas. With all the craziness in the economy our family is really trying to focus on being frugal this holiday season. It has been really wonderful actually -- aside from the part about coming up with a homemade gift for my husband :( I know, it's only 10 days until Christmas and I am STILL empty handed. It's a long story, but the gift I was so excited about turned out to cost $50 to make -- the same as purchasing it at the store. I don't know about you guys but I thought making something from scratch was supposed to be CHEAPER. I'm trying not to stress about that so if you have ANY ideas for a homemade gift for a man PLEASE let me know.
Anyway, this Christmas I have seen a lot of great homemade decorations and projects that can be made from paper. I love these ideas because paper is inexpensive and a lot of people already have craft paper lying around the house. So here are some cheap but fun paper Christmas projects:
This first picture is from my home. I have these three frames hanging in my kitchen. In the fall they have beautiful photos of pumpkins and leaves, in the spring it is berries and in the summer it is colorful vegetables. I purchase the photos through sites like istockphoto.com so they are gorgeous and make for really colorful decorations. Well, this year I didn't want to spend $10 on pictures for my wall :) Unfortunately I have NO skills in still-life/creative photography. Instead I went the cheap route and purchased some cream paper and printed pictures off my computer. The two trees are actually from a font I downloaded on dafont.com and the reindeer is from google images somewhere. I actually ended up liking the simple look and it was a quick and inexpensive project.


I saw these paper ornaments crafted on How About Orange (I am always stealing her stuff for this blog). I saw that a friend and her spouse had made all of their ornaments for their tree with paper so I thought I would post these cute ornaments. Click on THIS LINK for her detailed tutorial on making them. I think if they were blue and white they would remind me of snowflakes instead of flowers.

Love this idea from Martha. Really, if I had a mantle I would be making these tonight. Luh-Hove them. Wouldn't this look beautiful with that shimmery scrapbook paper they have?? Here's the link. Now go make some.


Now for the most genious idea of the night. Just kidding. This is my version of a tree garland made of paper links :) We have a tree made up of unique ornaments and mementos -- even the silly pinecone I made in kindergarten. As such, I can get away with a homemade garland to decorate it :) I love the look of ribbon on a tree but this year we decided to involve the kids and use up all of my red and green scraps to make a simple garland. I would post a picture of the tree but, well we don't have one yet. I know, do I sound SO unprepared for Christmas or what?! Hopefully we will fix that by tomorrow ...
Stay tuned, I have several easy crafts that make great neighbor gifts coming SOON.