You see, I don't know if you're aware of this, but I'm one of those post-college-very-broke girls. I live in a lovely home and have a decent car to get me around, but there's not much "Christmas decoration" money to be had, ya know? I splurged on the $12.99 pre-lit garland at Walgreens, got a pack of 100 mini colored lights there, got a pack of mini blue and silver christmas ornaments at Walmart, and a few other misc items, but mainly I had to start digging around the house for strands of leftover lights and items I could incorporate into my scene. Overall, I think it turned out pretty nice:
My favorite crafted project was the paper cones, pictured at the top of this entry. They are made from the heavy brown postal paper that comes in rolls, like wrapping paper, at the dollar store. I just laid out the paper, cut a haphazard "birthday hat" shape, and sort of elmer's glue/hot glue/wiggled it around until it was an acceptable shape, then I cut the bottom until it stood nice and flat. I then painted with shades of blue craft paint I had laying around, cut out stars from heavy disposable plates, and splurged with spray on glitter. The spray on glitter is the only item I purchased for the project, definitely the MOST expensive at almost $7 for a medium size spray can, but the effect was outstanding. To keep them standing outside, I hot glued full water bottles inside their base, one per cone. They made the cones stand a little funky, but now I know they won't blow away!
I feel like they add nice height to my flat porch, which made for good balance with the light display! I hope you enjoy this project enough to give it a try yourself, and check out my other christmas projects.
