Sometimes our Christmas decorations need a bit of tweaking. Some easy-to-make possibilities:
Pillar candles are great pieces year-round, but particularly as holiday decorations. All you need for this project are three “ingredients”:
- red pillar candles,
- double-faced carpet tape (available at any home store) and
- candy canes.
Take the pillar candle and wrap the bottom about one-third of the way up with the carpet tape. (One-third is just a suggestion. The candy canes will indicate how far up you put the tape.) Next, stick candy canes all around the bottom onto the tape. And there you have it -- easy and festive.
* Next, try spicing up some cylindrical glass candleholders. Fill the candleholder with water about halfway up. Float cranberries on the water and insert a floating candle in the middle of the cranberries. If you have several glass candleholders, you might consider filling the water at different heights so the display shows a variety, particularly when the candles are lit.
And it bears reminding: Always exercise due caution when it comes to lighted candles.
* How about an edible decoration? Get a few of those really big red wine glasses. Fill them with a variety of nuts. Put them on the buffet table -- and that’s all you have to do. If you feel more is needed, wrap the stems with red ribbon and finish by tying a bow at the bottom.
* Fill a large glass bowl with pinecones. Maybe add a few tree ornaments mixed in with the pinecones for an extra-festive touch.
* Do you own martini glasses? Why not use a few of them for decoration? Put one large tree ornament in each glass and place the glasses around the house as decoration, or group them on the coffee table or mantle. A variation would be to use several small ornaments in each glass instead of one large one.
* There are many ways we can use the Christmas cards we receive as decoration. One is to get red or green ribbon and frame a door with them. As the cards arrive, attach them to the ribbon. Soon enough, the door will be festively decorated at virtually no cost to you, and with very little effort.
* Are you a teddy-bear collector? If so, dress them in holiday gear and place them around the house as decoration. All you need is ribbon around their necks. There are also tiny Santa hats available at decor stores now, so place a Santa hat on a few of them and a candy cane in their paws.
(Rosemary Sadez Friedmann, an interior designer in Naples, Fla., is author of “Mystery of Color.” For design inquiries, write to Rosemary at DsgnQuest(at)aol.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
