Le Bois Sucré: 12/26/13

Thursday, December 26, 2013

How to Decorate your Christmas Tree for Less!

The Ornaments I bought for myself this year!

I love Hallmark Ornaments but I never can afford to purchase them for full price! So I have a tradition that started because of my horseback riding instructor/friend loved Hallmark Ornaments. She goes every year after Christmas and she purchases Hallmark Ornaments.I have gone a couple of years when I have had extra money. I go to the Hallmark stores/Gold Crown Stores and I arrive at opening time so I can have first pick. I am lucky to be right across from the Hallmark Gold Store so it just requires me getting up early and having some spare money. Then I purchase the Hallmark Ornaments that I want for half the ticket price. I was alone at 8:00 am but at 8:10 am people were flooding in. A couple days before Xmas I looked over the ornaments to see where the ornaments I wanted were and then I made a plan of attack.

I have a Hallmark Gold Store card so I earn coupons now for the purchase so that leads to more of the discount. I wanted to have the card last year but they were out of them and they never arrived in time. I did not spend that much on ornaments this year but since I got some money for Xmas I spent $101.00 on ornaments more than half of them I am selling on Ebay.

Penny as a little pup and the mini live Christmas Tree!

The first year we were married we did not get a tree. The next year we got a live mini Christmas tree and did not decorate it because of the fact Penny was a puppy. The live mini Xmas tree died before we could replant it so we considered that a waste.

Christmas tree 2012 with limited amount of Ornaments with Penny

2012 Christmas tree without presents or Penny.

2012 Christmas Tree Topper.
It was an Ornament I got for Christmas 2008!

Last year I mostly got dog photo ornaments
because we adore Penny!I got the ornament years that
she was here with us for a pretty good deal!

Last year was the first year that I bought a tree. I went across to Michaels with a good coupon/sale and I purchased a fake small tree because I live in a 600 square foot condo. Last year I went eBay hunting because a lot of my hallmark ornaments and ornaments were ruined. After Christmas in 2012 I restarted the tradition of going after Christmas to get Hallmark Christmas ornaments. I have sold some of those that I purchased on eBay and the duplicates I saved for myself. I also got a lot of ornaments from eBay for crazy deals. This year there was a flood in our storage unit. The outside of the Christmas tree box got soaked but I was lucky that I did not have to buy another Xmas tree. It was not wet when I touched the Christmas tree but I made sure that it was dried before I plugged in the tree. It works and it now is stored away in its Christmas bag in the condo.

Burke Decor Bag I got for $2.50 I got four and one is for Ornaments!

My Ornament bag and I also have one for my Christmas tree!

Ways to save on decorating a tree:

Buy after the season.
Use cheap wide bendable ribbon to wrap the tree gaps (you can save even more by buying after Christmas).

On long roll of Bendable Red with Silver ribbon I got from
Michaels for $5 and I reuse it every year! It makes it look luxe for less!

Use a cheap piece of faux fur to wrap the bottom of the tree instead of a tree skirt (I use one that I bought from Joann's fabric years ago for a couple of dollars as a tree skirt).

I bought the ornament on eBay and
that is the faux fur piece of fabric I use as a tree skirt.

Use eBay to find the ornaments that you want for a deal. You can get great deals on New in box items! But save even more on used items if you don't mind if they are out of the box. You can use the price range option on the left hand side to narrow your search and pay only as much as you want for items. If you don't want to bid you can also use the buy it now option to narrow your search to only those that are buy it now.