My Free Christmas Tree Decor

This year I vowed to keep things simple for the holidays and searched for free Christmas Tree Decor ideas and I love the way it turned out.

When we made our cross country move earlier this year, we sold so many of our belongings. It was so quick and we had very little space in our new place so tons of stuff had to go. That included our holiday decor. This has been a crazy year and lots of expenses and I really didn’t want to be stressed and over do it. Plus I have a toddler who loves to make things and I thought it would be a great way to build some memories and try out different sensory projects. I decided to challenge myself to not spend a dime on any of the decor, besides the actual tree.

My son and took a bag out on our neighborhood walk one day and collected a bunch of pine cones and small branches. Luckily we live in a wooded area and had lots to choose from. During nap time, I cleaned them up and picked out the best ones. We made trees out of branches glued to cardboard with a ribbon attached to hang.

I tied ribbon to the tops and even bottoms of some pine cones. Some tied with knots and others with bows. I used some gold ribbon I have had in my craft supplies for years. I saw some Pinterest ideas using pine cones and using hot glue to attach the ribbon to the pine cones. I decided just to tie them because I want to use the ribbon again next year and no sense in ruining it with glue in the middle.

I found a tutorial to make a 3d star here. I used a cereal box and glued two of them together. I had planned to paint it gold but actually liked the plain cardboard from the inside of the box best and left it. I left a little opening on the bottom and stuck the tree inside to hold it on.

I took some scrap fabric and draped it around the bottom of the tree to make the skirt. It will be filled up with presents soon.

We also made the traditional hand and foot print ornaments. I looked at a bunch of recipes for salt dough ornaments and tried a couple but one was too wet and another too dry so I decided to try out a cornstarch recipe instead. I loved it. It was super easy and great to work with. These were pretty much all made by my son and I. It shows in some places, he is two. It is really hard for me to let him have control of projects and take them on. A part of me (a big part) wants to swoop in and clean things up and perfect it but I am so glad I didn’t give in on those whims with him. It was so fulfilling to make these with him and he was so proud of them. It really brought about some great realizations about how special this time of year is and even more so with little ones around. I think this will be a new tradition for us!

I really like how the tree turned out. I’ll buy some things next year and add some clear (plastic with the littles) bulbs), more ribbon, etc. I even thought of stringing popcorn garlands but I had images of my son trying to eat it off the tree and pulling the tree down on himself.

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