These days it seems like the holidays make us feel so stressed, with all the activities of shopping, dinner planning, parties, school plays and driving the kids around, but there is something fun you can do and save money in the process...make your own Christmas Tree decorations!

This can be a fun project that can involve the whole family! It really won't be that expensive and allows you to be creative and maybe even start a new family tradition that will be enjoyed for years to come!

One of the things you can do is take some plain colored glass balls and use some spray-on glue to sprinkle on some glitter, jewels, buttons, or sequins.

These supplies are readily available at craft supply stores. While you're there you should pick up some ribbon, stickers, felt, yarn, and fabric scraps as well so you can have plenty of different options for decorating with.

Materials

The material such as felt, fabric scraps or ribbons could be used to cut out special shapes such as hearts or stars and then glue them on to the glass balls. You can also cut out some Christmas pictures from magazines or old Christmas Cards and use them to make some beautiful ornaments.

Being Creative

You can also use food to make ornaments. I'm sure you're all familiar with the popcorn string, which is always a big hit! You can also make cookies such as the Gingerbread man or other dough type of cookies. You can decorate them with frosting or a variety of sprinkles! You'll want to be sure to make a hole at the top so you can run a string thru it. Another good thing to do is to shrink wrap it with saran wrap. You can help make the plastic wrap conform to the cookie shape by heating it with a blow dryer! This way you can preserve the cookies so they could be eaten later!

You can even find ornament-decorating kits at crafts stores that allow you to cutout shapes, and then paint or color them. You can also make decorations with ordinary construction paper, some glue and glitter, crayons or paints! You should have everyone put their name on whatever they create, as it will make for wonderful memories in years to come.

There are other things you may find lying around the house that you can use as well. These could be things like old small toys that you can tie a string to and hang on the tree, or you may have some old jewelry, marbles, or maybe some colorful rocks.

Get the family together and toss around some decorating ideas and you may be surprised and delighted with what you come up with!

Emily Williams is the publisher for "Ready for Christmas". She has written a report for you on how to stay within budget during the Christmas holidays. You can get it free at her website.