Holiday Decorating Tips
and Family Craft Ideas - Holiday Home Decorating Ideas
- Fun Family Crafts for Christmas
- Ideas on How To Decorate your Fresh Cut Christmas Tree
Fun Family Crafts for Christmas
These little ornaments are simple to make they are great keepsakes and something the family can do together. The real fun also comes when next Christmas is here and remembering the past
Peppermint Christmas Photo Frame
What you will need: Peppermint Candies, jumbo craft sticks, tacky glue, card board, and a photograph or drawing to put in the picture, clear acrylic spray.
What to do:
1) Glue four jumbo craft sticks together to form a square. Turn the picture so it is facing you. Glue peppermint candies all the way around the edge. You can leave the wrappers on or take them off. If you take the wrappers off spray several coats of clear acrylic paint over the candy and let dry between coats. This will keep the candy looking fresh and keep ants away.
2) Glue a picture backed with cardboard on the back of the craft stick frame. Cut out a stand and glue it to the back.
Christmas Tree Photo Frame Ornament
What you will need: Small plastic picture frames, photographs, ribbon, lace, and other decorative items.
What to do: Remove the plastic photo covering from the frame if there is one. Use the covering as a template to cut your photographs to fit the frame. Insert the picture and glue on ribbon and other decorative things to finish.
Holiday Home Decorating Ideas Are you looking to turn your home into a Winter Wonderland, but do not know where to start? Picmyframe.com, has put together some decorating tips that are sure to make your home a warm, cozy holiday haven for you and your family:
Christmas Celebration Room 
1) Choose one room of your home and designate it the holiday celebration room. In this room, remove all of your regular pictures, knick-knacks and other decorations and replace them with festive decor.
2) Add holiday magic to the inside of your home, by putting strands of lights on the ceiling, windows, mirrors, picture frames and shelves, and of course, do not forget to put them on the tree!
3) You and your children can string-your-own garlands of cranberries, popcorn or colored-marshmallows hang over doorways or drape over pictures, mantels or mirrors. You can even make a paper chain out of red and green construction paper, and tear a link off each day as you count down to Christmas.
4) If you are looking for a way to add a special Christmas holiday touch to every room in your house ribbon is an inexpensive, but elegant option. Use red, green, white, or holiday print ribbon to decorate lamps, chairs, pictures or mirrors. You can even tie ribbons around throw pillows to make them look like presents!
5) Pictures are a wonderful way build up a holiday-theme in any room. However, if you do not want to invest a lot of money in art work that will be on display for such a short time of year, there are several creative alternatives. Favorite old Christmas cards that you have received, or calendar pictures from the month of December make excellent seasonal artwork when framed. You can also make pictures with your family as a holiday activity, and then frame them and make them part of the holiday decorations that you put out each year. You can also wrap the existing pictures on your wall, and re-hang them to look like presents.
6) Fill tall clear glass containers or vases with inexpensive Christmas tree decorations in a variety of colors and place them throughout your home. This is a cost-effective way to bring the holiday spirit into every room.
7) Place poinsettias, wreaths, holly or other seasonal foliage throughout your home to bring the holiday spirit to life. In addition to being beautiful to look at, fresh florals make your home smell nice too!
8) Establish a theme, just like you might when decorating your home. Whether it's a color-scheme or an object such as teddy bears, Santa Claus or snow men, revolving your holiday decorating around one thing can make decorating easier and even more fun.
9) Place colorful candles or baskets of potpourri in every room. Scents such as cinnamon, pumpkin spice and bayberry will tempt all of your senses to celebrate the holidays!
10) Let it snow inside! Use sheets of plain white paper to cut out snowflakes in every shape and size. Hang them in the windows, on the walls or use string or fishing line to suspend them from the ceiling and remember, no two snowflakes are alike!
Now that the decorating is done, sit down, relax and have a glass of eggnog - Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas!
Fun Clay Pot
Tools and Supplies Needed:
Tools: Pen, Ruler, Scissors, Glue Gun, Paint Brush.
Supplies: 3 to 4" Clay Pot, 4.5" Grapevine wreath or similar, 2 gold leaf branches, 1.25" red plaid wire edge ribbongold, acrylic paint. 1. Paint the outside of the clay pot gold. Add a second coat if necessary.
2. Cut a 54" piece of the red plaid wire edge ribbon and wrap the length around the wreath, overlapping the width by half. The first end can be tucked in when you are wrapping it around and this will secure it sufficiently but the other end needs to be hot glued in place. There should be a small opening between where you started wrapping the ribbon and where you finished. 
3. Take the two gold leaf branches and tuck the ends under the ribbon, one on the side where you started wrapping and the other into the side where you finished. You don't need to hot glue them in place, just use the tip of a pen or pencil to push them down in far enough so the leaves are barely touching each other.
4. Insert the bottom of the clay pot through the ribbon-covered wreath and push the wreath up as far as you can. You should be able to push it halfway up the raised rim of the pot and because you pushed it up so tightly it will stay in place on its own.
5. Insert a votive into the bottom of the pot. When you are ready to light the candle, melt a bit of the wax on the base of the candle to help secure it to the bottom of the pot.
Other crafty Christmas type items to use for decorating a photo frame or your home for the Holidays:
For Christmas:
* Tinsel
* Little cut-outs of Christmassy things, from wrapping paper or old cards
* Small ornaments or bits of ornaments left over from a wreath
* Little ribbon bows
* Fake holly and berries
* Gold stars, either stickers, or shapes cut from cardboard
* Gold and silver beads, or metallic beads in Christmas colors
* Red or green gingham ribbon
* Christmas shapes (trees are easiest!) cut out of craft foam
* Spices (cloves, star anise, cinnamon sticks). This frame smells nice too!
* Tiny pine cones
* Glitter lots of it, with some sequins thrown in for good measure. This is fun to do but can be messy to display: no matter how well the glitter is stuck on, it will always find its way off the frame again!
* Gold and silver braid and ribbons
* Fake spruce
* Miniature wrapped-up presents, make your own, or buy miniature tree decorations
* Cotton wool for a snow scene
* Small squares cut from last year's Christmas cards. Cut them carefully to include the right colors and you will get a lovely mosaic effect
Ideas on How To Decorate your Fresh Cut Christmas Tree
Decorating Tips for Christmas Trees
First, Keep your tree Fresh - Keep the water reservoir in your tree stand full, especially during the christmas tree's first days and week inside. Most trees with a fresh cut will drink many quarts of water in the first few hours, so check the water level in your tree stand several times a day for about a week, and less frequently thereafter.
Wilt resistant spray - Check out a new wilt resistant spray that can be applied to trees before bringing them indoors that claims to keep needles fresh for several weeks. You can find this at any large retail store like Target.
Order of Placing Decorations - Place decorations in this order: 1. lights, 2. garland, 3. decorations.
Inside, Outside - Arrange lights 'inside' your tree (place halfway between the tip of the Christmas Tree and the trunk) as well as on the perimeter of the tree.
How Many Special Ornaments? - Mix one of a kind special ornaments with more generic "filler" ornaments. To make an impact, plan on using about 10 special themed ornaments (10 birdhouses, music notes, etc.) for every 2 feet of tree.
How Many Filler Ornaments? - Create repetition by using a consistent filler ornament on your tree. This is a good way to stretch a growing collection of themed ornaments too. Plan to use at least a dozen "filler" ornaments for every 2 feet of tree. These can be glass balls readily available at discount stores.
Where to Put Ornaments- Place ornaments and other decorations 'inside' your tree as well as on the tips of branches, to add depth and interest.
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