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Most of our holiday decorating is usually centered around the main living areas of our home.  Usually the living room and family rooms are the first areas to be decorated, and the many other rooms of the house often times go forgotten.  Today, however, many homeowners are decorating other rooms of their home, in addition to the living room.  Here are a few ideas to help you get started decorating some other rooms of your home:

Kitchen:

While most people don’t have a lot of wall space in their kitchens due to cabinets and windows, there are certain things that can add a festive touch to this area of the house.  If you have an open area above your cabinets, this might be a perfect spot for that Victorian sleigh and Santa Claus that you want to put out, but don’t want the children to play with.  A beautiful holiday plate or bowl on a clear plastic plate stand would really dress up the back corner of the counter top, along with a coordinating holiday cookie jar.  Trading out your normal kitchen towels and rugs for ones that coordinate with the rest of your holiday decorations as well as your table linens gives a unified look.

Four Season Porch or Sun Room:

A sun room or porch is the perfect place for a lighted tree at night because all the windows make it very visible to the surrounding area.  This is also the perfect place to get a little whimsical with your decorations, too.  The children will love a bright tree and funky decorations.  Perhaps you would prefer a country or historical décor in this room.  Popcorn and cranberries strung on a green tree are a sensory pleasure.  Whichever you choose, be sure to add all the small touches you like, this is an area where adding more clutter just makes the end result look better.

Bathrooms:

Like the kitchen, trade your everyday towels and rugs for holiday linens.  If you have room on your bathroom countertop or vanity, add a small, decorated topiary-type tree.  Some Christmas hand soaps are a nice touch.  Since most of these rooms are small, a wreath is always a nice way to add a bit of the holidays without taking up too much space.

Bedrooms:

Bedrooms are great places to add some holiday cheer that will be enjoyed by each member of the family individually.  A small artificial tree is always a welcome pleasure to a child who is old enough to understand safety.  Letting the child pick the ornaments or make paper ornaments to decorate the tree will make it that much more special.  A stuffed Santa Claus and holiday bedding or throw can top off the child’s room.  For adults, a small lighted tree, wreath and candles can make a peaceful place to get away from the holiday rush.

One thing that remains a staple in holiday decorating is the Christmas tree and wreaths that can be used just about anywhere in the home.  As you expand your decorations throughout the house, your need for holiday storage will also grow.  This requires a concerted effort on your part to be organized and efficient in storing your holiday decorations.  When decorating an entire house, one of the most efficient ways to store your decorations is by room.  With appropriate labeling, the trees, wreaths, and ornaments can be distributed to the appropriate location and then opened up.  This same procedure can be reversed when it is time to un-decorate the house.

One of the most fun parts of Christmas, for adults and children alike, is decorating! Every family has their own decorating traditions. Some families wait until Christmas Eve to put up and decorate their Christmas tree, while other families can’t even wait until after Thanksgiving to drag out the lights, ornaments, nativity scenes, and boxes and boxes of those cherished Christmas decorations.

For as many years as you’ve been putting out your Christmas decorations, there is always room in your home for more. And there’s always a chance to learn new tricks when it comes to filling your home with the Christmas spirit.

This holiday season; don’t hesitate to bring the outside in at Christmas. Pinecones, firs, and greenery can be brought inside to give your home a little Christmas warmth. Your children and grandchildren can create unique holiday treats with a little help from you. Give each child some pinecones and let them decorate with paint, glue, glitter, and fake snow. The decorated pinecones can be left in your windowsills, in baskets throughout your home, or even roped around trees in your yard, as an easy outdoor Christmas decoration.

Another great way to rev up some holiday spirit with your kids is to teach them a variety of homemade, traditional Christmas decorations. Pop some popcorn and get some cranberries to string around your tree. Or, build the biggest and best gingerbread house you have ever seen with gum drops, icing and lollipops galore. Not into edible decorations? Drag out the sewing machine and have your children help design new Christmas-themed tablecloths and placemats for the big day.

If you have a big enough property, you can even step up your Christmas decorations a notch this year and become the house on the block for people to see. This could take a little extra work, and bit more charge on your electricity bill, but it could also be a once in a lifetime experience for your young children.

Decorating “Griswold” style may involve loading your house with lights of every shape and color, and putting out larger decorations, like a big plastic light up Santa Claus and a few reindeer. You could also try to go with a theme, such as the top Christmas movies of all time, and have figurines and different settings on your lawn representing scenes from the movies. Then sit back and watch as the neighborhood drives by to see your new creation.

If you are not into plastic Christmas figures and extra company, you could always go with the classic lit deer, or a simply lit tree in your front yard. Garland wrapped around the columns of your house also lends a stately touch.

So, it doesn’t matter if you are hanging stockings over the fireplace, unwrapping Christmas ornaments from years gone by, or setting out your favorite nutcracker, there is one important thing to remember this holiday season. Treasure each and every moment with your loved ones, and make each holiday decoration a new and cherished memory.

When is the best time to decorate? That time between Labor Day and Halloween is that time of year when serious decorators put on their decorating cap and go out and secure some of the best bargains of the year

Fall is a beautiful time of year with every thing around us changing. The same is true in the decorating world and here are six reasons why you should take advantage of the season and do your decorating now!

1. The Stores Are Stocked And Full Of Merchandise

By this time of year the decorating and department stores have eliminated all the old merchandise and the new merchandise for the coming holiday decorating frenzy are in the stores and on the shelves ready for your inspection.

The fabric companies have all the latest styles with this years hot colors on full display. The window blind manufactures have distributed all the new samples and some of the new innovations that you’re going to see are fantastic.

Some of the companies have really done a great job of improving their product line and their price point. You will want to pay particular attention to some of the new offerings by Levolor this year. They have made a number of improvements in both quality and lower price.

2. Vacations Are Over

It is hard to get real good service during the summer time as the store associates as well as the installers are taking vacations but at this time of the year vacations are over and the installers as well as the sales people are ready and anxious to get back in the groove.

Use this to your advantage. Most people are not thinking about decorating yet. They usually don’t think about decorating till after Halloween and then they go into a decorating frenzy that creates tension and confusion for both the store personnel as well as the buyer. The result is hurried up decisions that sometimes prove to be not the best.

3. Sales Personnel Have The Time To Spend With You.

Business is slow at this time of the year so sales people have the time to spend with you. Use this to your advantage, talk to the and get their ideas on your decorating project. Pick their brain, get their ideas and together you will come up with a well thought out decorating plan that you and your family will enjoy for many, many years down the road.

The closer you get to the Holidays the harder it is to get service, take advantage of the time now to get execelent service.

4. Bargains Abound

The store personnel want to get those new product out into the community so you’ll talk to your family and friends about the latest and the greatest. It’s just good business for them to get those products out there to be used and stared at, that’s why they are offering deep discounts on the new products now.

Don’t be concerned about the new products not working. By the time they have made it to the showroom they have been tested and the bugs are long gone leaving you with a good working product.

5. Service Will Be Quick

The factories, the sales personnel and decorators as well as the installers have all had their vacations and ready and willing to get back in the swing of things. Income usually declines in the summer time so most if not all are ready to start making some real money again.

I said it before wait till after Halloween and nothing will be cheap, easy or quick. Remember that law of supply and demand that you learned about back in Economics class? When stores are busy the discounts disappear.

When customers are in line two or three deep there is not time to give good service, just keep that line moving. It’s just not physically possible.

And the installers are ready. They spent all their money on vacations and taking it easy during the summer and are now ready to work whenever and wherever they are needed. After Halloween they will be booked solid and you will be at the mercy of their tight schedual.

6. You’ll Be Able To Have A “Chillin” Holiday Time

Get your decorating out of the way now and come Holiday time you will be able to spend your time on holiday events with your family and not be concerned with a decorating project that is not going the way you envisioned. When there is no time left to do anything about it.

Do your decorating now and come Holiday time sit back and relax!

If you want to try something different to decorate for the holidays, try these ideas featuring glass, from the simple to the complex:

• Place a glass ornament in a special wine glass for the window ledge or fireplace mantel.

• Put small glass ornaments in a clear lamp base.

• Decorate the outside of a glass vase with words, symbols, or lines in glitter glaze and put a candle inside the vase.

• Create a Christmas tree centrepiece by carefully hot- gluing colored glass ball ornaments in a pyramid shape on a Styrofoam base.

• Use baby food jars to make a Christmas tree or other holiday symbol, with the bottoms of the jars facing out. Hot-glue the jars together. Put garland, tinsel, foil, or glitter in the jars and seal them with the lids. You can even cut holes in the lids and attach a strand of lights, one bulb per lid.

• If you have a bay window, make it the focal point of the decorations, instead of the Christmas tree or fireplace mantel. Use children’s artwork, homemade stained glass, window clings, letters to Santa, stockings, photos, ornaments, collectables and lights. Presents can be stacked below the window.

• Call your local Glass Doctor shop and have a bay window or sun-room installed. O.K. that may be asking too much

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Established in 1962, Glass Doctor is the largest chain of full-service glass replacement providers in the nation Recognized by Entrepreneur magazine among its “Franchise 500,” Glass Doctor franchisees offer complete glass replacement, service and repairs to the automotive, residential and commercial markets at more than 360 locations in the United States. Glass Doctor is a subsidiary of The Dwyer Group, Inc. For further information or to find the location nearest you, visit

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The holidays are coming, and for most women this creates mixed feelings of excitement and dread. The dilemma of balancing all the demands on your time is heightened and the panic grows with each passing day as you begin one of the time-honored rituals of the season—comparing your progress with shopping, wrapping, and decorating with your friends, family, and co-workers.

At times the weight of all the added work, even the activities you truly enjoy, can be unbearable. If you want to save time while reducing your stress during the holiday season, use the following time management strategies.

How to Save Time While Decorating for the Holidays

Decorate Less – Do you really need to decorate every room, the front door, the mailbox, the trees in the yard, and the rooftop? Consider scaling back a little each year, and as an early Christmas gift, give your unused decorations to a family who needs them. An added advantage to this tip—when the holidays are over, putting everything away (which is never much fun) will take less time.

Make Decorating An On-Going Activity – You can make most time-consuming tasks more enjoyable by doing a little at a time, instead of working non-stop until you are finished. Choose a starting date and decorate one area of the house. Then wait a few days before doing another area. This way you can spend time enjoying your mantel display before becoming distracted with the dining room and your holiday center piece.

How to Save Time While Shopping for Holiday Gifts

Shop Online at Amazon – Shopping is always easy at this site offering an amazing variety of products, usually costing less than other sources. On some purchases free shipping and no taxes add to your savings. Also, you will have no driving time, you’ll save gas money, and you can do laundry while you shop.

Partner With A Friend Who Likes to Shop – The discovery that someone you know loves doing something you dislike is always beneficial. There are two options to consider. One—pay her to do some (or all) of your shopping for you. Two—trade jobs. If you like to decorate, put up her tree for her while she shops for you.

Plan Your Shopping Excursions – If you must go to an actual store, call ahead to make sure the items you want are available, combine as many stops as possible, and go alone.

 How to Save Time While Wrapping Holiday Gifts

 Organize Your Work Space – If possible, dedicate a space as the wrapping room or table, and keep all the supplies you need there until every gift is wrapped. If you cannot dedicate a space, find two storage boxes and keep all your supplies in one and all the gifts you have purchased in another.

 Use Gift Bags – You can get the job done faster, and bags can be saved and used for several years, so you can save money and help the environment at the same time.

The final tip you need to make these ideas work—let go of perfection and weigh the value of tradition against the value of time spent engaged in activities you enjoy. Get busy using these ideas to get your “chores” done faster so the real party with your family and friends can start. You will finish the extra seasonal responsibilities earlier than you usually do. Then you can relax and actually enjoy the celebration.

 



 

 

The English word wreath comes from the old English word, writhen, meaning to writhe or to twist. Holiday wreaths have long been made by twisting or bending evergreen branches into a circular shape. The ancient Greeks, and Romans, used evergreen leaves and garlands to make headdresses that were awarded as prizes to Olympic athletes, military hero’s, kings and others. Athletes received wreaths of Laurel, military hero’s received wreaths made from olive branches. Members of the aristocracy began adding jewels and precious metals to these headdresses, creating what became the Crown. The word crown comes from the Latin word corona which means wreath or garland. The bible associates wreaths with joy, triumph and honor. In Christianity the holiday wreath represents the circle, and likewise is given as a symbol of eternity. When made of evergreen leaves and branches the wreaths symbolize everlasting life with the green color symbolizing hope and new life. It was somewhere during the 15th century that the wreath began to be used as a hanging decoration. Select this link to see our line of Artificial Christmas Wreaths and Pre-lit Christmas Wreaths. Some believed that hanging a wreath was a sign of victory, be it political, personal or religious.

The History of Christmas Wreaths.

Evergreen plants, such as holly, ivy and pine, which stay green all year, have long been used to create holiday wreaths. Such greens as holly, ivy, and mistletoe have special meaning since they not only stay green, they bear fruit during the harsh winter months. Anciently people symbolized these plants to represent the promise of new or everlasting life. The people of northern Europe and the Romans decorated their homes with evergreen boughs during their winter festivals. Select this link to see our Christmas Wreaths, Garlands, Christmas Greenery and Christmas Ribbon. Sprigs of holly would also be exchanged as tokens of good will for the coming new year. The early Greeks and Romans brought green boughs indoors as a living reminder of nature’s vitality. The Victorian era brought an appreciation for lavish arrangements from greens such as ivy, hemlock, yew, laurel, and bay. Select this link to see our Battery Operated Lights.

A nineteenth century an American custom was to use greens and boughs for wreaths as memorials, honoring the dead at Christmas. The boughs would be woven into wreaths, Christmas stars, and crosses for graves. Later, the boughs would be removed from the cemeteries by family members and brought home, where they continued to symbolize the season as holiday decor.

In the early 1900’s natural Christmas foliage and greens had become less abundant in the countryside. With the introduction of plastic artificial Christmas foliages, Unique Christmas Ribbon and greens we could now make artificial Christmas decorations without endangering nature. Select this link to view our Christmas Trees Artificial. Plastic holly, evergreen, and berries were the most realistic of these early reproductions. By the early 1960’s, new materials such as silk and vinyl opened the door to more life like Christmas Wreaths and decorations. New Christmas Greenery, Christmas Picks and Vases were now available for the Christmas decorators. Select this link to see our Christmas Tree Lights and Outdoor Christmas Decorations. Making the choice of colors and textures limitless.

Holiday Wreaths.

Advent wreaths originated as folk traditions of the people of northern Europe. In the deep of winter candles were lit on circular shaped bundles of evergreen. Both the evergreen and the circular shape symbolized everlasting life. The candle light gave the people comfort at that darkest time of the year, as they looked forward to the warm days of spring. Traditionally an advent wreath consists of four candles, three purple and one rose colored. The three purple candles symbolize hope, peace and love. They were lit on the first, second, and fourth Sundays of Advent. The rose candle, symbolizes joy and was lit on the third Sunday. By the sixteenth century advent wreaths were being made much as we know them today. Check out our wonderful Christmas Decorations Ideas Web Site.

Christmas wreaths are a friendly welcome to all.

Traditional Christmas wreaths are a symbol of faith. Since wreaths are a circle with no beginning or end, they symbolize God’s eternity and mercy during the Christmas season. When Christmas Wreaths are decorated with evergreen leaves and branches they symbolize everlasting life and God’s everlasting love. Their green color is a representation of hope and new life.

Use these ideas for the next holiday party your child has at school.

1. Figure out how many people will be attending the holiday party and make or buy plain cupcakes or cookies so each person has one or two. Make sure you allow for extras in case of those unfortunate accidents.

2. Pick up a couple of different kinds of frosting, a mixture of sprinkles, mini M & Ms, mini chocolate chips, toffee pieces and some nuts. Pick out the ones you want for the cupcakes or cookies you will be decorating.

3. Make sure you have containers for knives, paper towels, toppings, waxed paper and a paper plate for each child participating.

4. Use a cupcake or holiday cookie menu for every child. Make sure there is place for each child’s name. Every child should mark the appropriate box for the kind of sprinkles and frosting they would like. Collect the menus after the children have filled them out.

5. Decide who the holiday foreperson is going to be. Being in charge of the holiday decorating crews, job assignments and quality control is the job description. Being able to work well with other children is very important for the holiday foreperson.

6. Put children in group of four to five. Explain to them they will either be filling the cupcake menu or holiday cookie requests after you introduce them to their holiday foreperson. Make an example of one completed cookie or cupcake to show them.

7. Four or five Menus should be completed by the first group. Give each child a specific job, a kind of frosting or sprinkles or topping to put on. Make sure each child understands their job and how important it is to listen to the foreperson and work as a team.

8. Making sure the assigned menus are completed and each child does their job is what the foreperson is responsible for. The foreperson needs to make sure they are being kind and encouraging but firm at the same time. Show them how to be a positive role-model.

9. The group that is waiting to decorate their cookies or cupcakes should participate in an activity such as a crossword puzzle or a game. Make sure everyone is having a good time and staying busy.

10. Take every child’s menu and pass around the cupcakes or cookies when all of the holiday treats have been frosted and sprinkled. It is great to see if each child actually gets the treat they ordered. Tell the children what a good job they did.

The holiday cookie or cupcake assembly line can work with almost any holiday party and it is a great learning experience for children.

Getting organized for the holidays is a dilemma which many of us must deal with. There is simply not time to get day-to-day work done, go Christmas shopping, get to extra community events, make plans to see relatives, and remain sane enough to get organized for the holidays. However, believe it or not, there is hope. Good time management is the first secret of successful holiday organization.

No matter how stalwart one may be on not getting into a holiday mindset until Thanksgiving weekend, the organized individual may begin before Thanksgiving comes around. While you do not need to start decorating at this point, steps can be taken early to help one avoid problems later. First, make sure your house/apartment is clean and ready to be decorated before bringing everything out of storage. This advice defies logic in some ways. Why would you clean and arrange before bringing out a bunch of dusty boxes?

The answer is simple: cleaning is the easiest way to reorganize. Do not think that you can be ready to prepare a meal for extended family with your kitchen set-up as it currently is. If that alone does not make you consider a kitchen overhaul, then realize that you may also have increased pressure to produce baked goods. Cleaning your kitchen and reorganizing it so that it can handle the pressures of the holidays is one of the most important steps towards having an organized house.

Another secret to getting organized is to invest in the best storage products. Stop settling for cardboard boxes and plastic bags. While these items may be cheap, they are inferior to storage products that are readily available online. The products available can do wonders for your holiday preparation. You no longer have to spend hours unwrapping, and later wrapping, ornaments in newspaper. These boxes consist of three “trays” that snap together and, in the end, hold twenty-seven or twenty-eight ornaments. The design allows the ornaments to rest snuggly within plastic walls that prevent excessive jostling or any other potential hazardous trouble. Invest in some organizational products, and you can begin to save yourself time and frustration during the holiday seasons or any other time of year.

Organizing your gift-wrap is another challenge that is often faced around the holidays and this is another situation in where the use of a box is outdated. Specialty products such as a Ribbon and Wrap Organizer can allow you to store all of your present wrapping devices in one place. This rack holds your rolls of paper and ribbons on easily accessible rods. It can fold and be stored on the inside of a door for convenient storage, but then can support itself when put out on a table or on the floor. This gives you an organized way to deal with your wrapping needs.

A final secret to getting yourself organized for the holidays is remove unnecessary wires and strings. Sorting through the endless tangles of Christmas lights can be a decorator’s nightmare during the Christmas season. However, in recent years the accessibility of battery and solar-based lighting has gone up. Battery powered candles can rest in all of your windows, and you can avoid trying to cover up ugly strands of wire with flammable wreaths and cloth. You can even purchase mantle scarves that are pre-lit to avoid excess wires around your fireplace.

The greatest secret of all when it comes to holiday decorating is that it is not as simple as it often looks. Getting your house/apartment to that picture perfect level is incredibly difficult work. Do not procrastinate on getting started because you may always consider yourself too busy to begin. The key to it all is to know your limitations. Your house does not have to look like it just came out of a magazine to create positive memories for everyone involved. Decorate your home to make it reflect yourself, and your family values. If religion/faith is important to you and your family, then focus on that. How can you establish a reverent, thought provoking, meaningful holiday environment for your family? If your interests are of a more secular nature, then let the images of Santa Clause flow. Enjoy the jolly guffaw of Father Christmas and the laughter of childhood memories being made.

Your home should be a reflection of those living in it. By planning well, investing in storage materials and maximizing technology you can set yourself up to create the environment of your choosing. Stick within those parameters and you can be set up well for the kind of holiday that creates wonderful memories. Proper organization can save you a lot of time and effort because if you are able to find everything that you need during the holiday season, you should be stress free and more relaxed during this time of year.

Are you looking for a way to decorate your home inexpensively and give it a warm and inviting feeling? Displaying photos of family and friends around your home immediately invites people to get a glimpse of what is important to you. It also helps to make them feel welcome in your home.

There are many items on the market right now to make this process easy. Wall ledges with grooves to hold frames in place can be found at many stores. Hanging two or three ledges on an expanse of wall and placing large framed photos on them is an eye catching way to decorate with your personal photos.

Sets of table top frames can be purchased. These sets contain two or more (sometimes even as many as 15) coordinating photo frames in various sizes to make decorating simple. Placing coordinating frames around a room - some on a side table, some on a mantle, some on top of a bookcase - can help give your room a pulled together feeling.

To complement your holiday decorating, buy some seasonal frames and place personal photos of past holidays in them. Place them around the house at holiday time. You can change out the photos from year to year, making this a very inexpensive way to change your decorating each year.

If you’d like to put a little more work and creativity into decorating your home with personal photos, try one of these ideas.

Create a Wall Collage of Black and White Photos

With today’s digital technology, making copies, cropping, and color enhancing your photos is easy and affordable. Try using this technology to create an inexpensive collage of black and white photos on a large open area of wall space in your home.

If you have old black and white photos of relatives you can mix them with recent photos. Vary the size of the prints and purchase inexpensive mats and frames for them. For added pop and contrast, vary the width of some of the mats, also.

You will need to create a template for your collage. Measure the dimensions of the wall space you will be using. Tape together pieces of newspaper to the exact dimensions and lay them on the floor. Then arrange your framed photos on the newspaper until you find a configuration you like.

Once you’ve found an arrangement that pleases you, trace each photo frame onto the newspaper. Then mark the spot where the hook is to be placed. Tape the newspaper onto the wall, nail in your hooks, and then remove the paper. You’re ready to hang your black and white photos.

Use an Old Wood Window as a Frame

Purchase, grab from your basement, or trash pick an old wooden window with grills. This makes a one of a kind frame for your personal photos. Clean up the old frame and paint it. Or, leave the old, distressed paint on the window for a vintage decorating style.

You will need as many personal photos as you have panes of glass. Make sure the photos are smaller than each pane, leaving some open glass to show the wall behind. This creates a mat for your photos. Affix the photos onto the glass and hang the old window securely on the wall.

With a little time and thought, you can bring photos that have been stored away in dark closets into the light. This simple, creative, inexpensive way of home decorating with your personal photos will make a big impact on those who enter your home.

When the holidays sneak up on us, decorating for festive occasions becomes a double edged sword. Decorating with happy holiday music in the background is so much fun, as is enjoying the fruits of holiday labor in a warm home with festive décor through the holidays, but the cleanup can be quite a headache. One of the easiest ways to decorate for the holidays is with simple holiday flags.

The best thing about a holiday flag is that you can choose according to your faith, you can change them up frequently and they are easy to store and take up almost no room. They are also relatively inexpensive so if you want to have a different one each year, you won’t go into debt for your holiday décor and you can choose a winter theme, a holiday theme or even a message flag depending on your taste.

A great example of simple exterior home or office décor would be a simple evergreen wreath decorated with a bow or other accoutrement and a festive Happy Holidays flag flying from your flag pole. Minimal work, minimal cleanup and maximum festivity! You can add holiday lights if you choose, or simply electric candles in each window and your home or office will look tasteful yet festive and you’ll know the great secret - that when cleanup time comes, it will take you only about five minutes to dismantle.

Of course, if you feel like going all out on your holiday décor a holiday flag can also act as the last part of your holiday motif. If you have gone all out with Santa Claus, find a jolly St. Nick flag to fly. Perhaps you prefer snowmen and snowflakes - we have holiday flags that can work with that theme as well! No matter which holiday décor suits your taste or budget, we’ll have a festive flag option for you.

Of course, if you don’t usually fly a flag, don’t forget to get proper hardware and a proper flag pole for your home. You can find flagpoles that extend from the front of your home, from the upper floors of your home and you can even find residential flagpoles to sink into the ground depending on how much money and time you want to invest. You’ll also need proper halyard to fly a flag outdoors.

Enjoy the holidays and show your spirit without creating more work for yourself in January! Also, don’t forget that you can also use seasonal decorative flags and show your spirit and decorate your home throughout the year.