Frugal Christmas

Christmas on a budget requires some planning ahead. And it's never too late (or too early) to start. 

This time of year, the school supplies are still on sale.  When my kids were younger, I'd buy art supplies for them on sale now, and save them for Christmas presents.

Kmart and Sears are offering free layaway.  Walmart and Toys R Us are also doing layaway again, though they *may* have a fee.  We have a Christmas savings account, so we don't use layaway, but we did when the kids were little, and it helped a lot.

The stores are now selling Halloween stuff, by the gazillion.  Which reminds me of another great idea.  A few years ago, I showed up bright and early on November 1st and bought wigs and other fun things.  Tucked them away for Christmas for the girls' pretend play.  They *loved* it!

As I think of more, I'll let you know.

The after-Christmas sales have been a boon to my budget as well.  We're still using the red Saran Wrap I bought for half-price last year.  I also look for Ziploc bags, napkins, paper towels, and tissues.  Who cares what it looks like if it does the job?!  Oh!  And Sharpies and packing tape.  Half-price because the packaging was Christmas-y.  Cuz, you know, all of that stuff stops working on December 26th because it's the wrong color!  ROFL!  

Christmas in January

There are a couple of Christmas projects I've been wanting to do for a while now (like several YEARS), but I always get caught in the insanity that is December and those projects wind up on the back burner. Again. And again.

This year, as we took down our Christmas decorations and stashed away all the amazing clearance finds, I decided it was a perfect time to take on those projects.

I saw the inspiration for this box in a Reader's Digest Christmas book several years back. I wanted to buy the book, but sadly, it's long since out of print. So I copied lots of pages out of it before returning it to the library. I'll probably be working through those ideas for years!

This is a box for my Christmas music CDs. Normally, they just hang out on the counter on a little shelf under my CD player. Not this coming Christmas!

This year, they'll be hanging out in this:


Pretty, huh? I think it needs some kind of decorative element on the front in the center, but I haven't found the perfect thing yet, so it'll wait until I do. I'm picturing something red, gold, and gaudy as heck! LOL!

I started with this pile of supplies. I gave up on the glitter paper, though. It just didn't seem right somehow--a shoe box, Mod Podge, and some photocopies of Christmas hymns from a nearby hymnal. I copied them onto some beige/eggshell colored paper to make them look more aged.


I used my handy-dandy Creative Memories tearing tool to tear the edges. I only used a few of them, really, and it was hard to choose favorites to put on the box. I've saved the scraps for another project, though, I promise not to keep them forever! :-)


Then I used my brown ink pad and a plain old (really cheap) make up sponge to "chalk" the edges, further aging the paper. I tried the fancier sea sponge, but the make up sponge really worked a lot better and is loads cheaper.

Then I Mod Podged the music onto the box in a random pattern, and sealed it with Mod Podge sealer. And last I glued the red ribbon around the top edges, both inside and out.