Green Decorating Ideas

Some of the things I love best this time of year are decorating the house, Christmas music, lots more time getting together with friends and family plus great food! This time of year is also important for empty nesters as it’s the one time a year when all the kids some home at the same time.

Like most people this year, we are focused on saving money so we’re not planning to buy anything for decorating but rather get more creative about using what we already own. This is also important when you live in a smaller home, with less storage than our huge Victorian with more space than we could ever fill up.

Being a collector, I’ve got lots of natural materials so I’m reusing things, i.e. emptying the wonderful glass fish I have to borrow the shells on display there. Somewhere I have lots of pinecones although it may be a challenge to find them. For fun I’m going to go into my quilting stash for some fun fabrics, to use in unique ways as once I’m done, I can wash them and put them away for another day.

Part of the fun is using your imagination, so I’ll just share some ideas here to get you dreaming about a new way of decorating. What’s important is to enjoy creating the decorations, figuring out how to display them and enjoying seeing them around your house through the holiday season.

Green holiday decorating with pine cones

You can find lots of pine cones laying on the ground below many types of evergreen trees. Here are fun ways to decorate with pine cones:

• Fill bowls or large flower vases with pine cones of all sizes, and toss in a little color to coordinate with each room.
• Create garlands of pine cones. Hang them on the fireplace or over doorways, using braided picture hanging wire.
• Make ornaments by tying individual or groups of pine cones with bright ribbon. Hang on the tree or at the corners of windows. You can spray paint them for added color.
• Create a pinecone tree with a foam cone base. Place larger pinecones at the bottom, smaller ones at the top and use fall leaves or winter greens, oranges, plus cloves and cinnamon.
• Make a holiday wreath of pinecones, alone or combined with everygreens, boxwood, etc.

Note: After collecting your pinecones, you’ll want to clean them to remove bugs and dirt. You can put them in the oven to melt the sap which also gives them a nice glaze, although pinecones that haven’t opened will open in the het.

Seashells and sand are great for green holiday decorating

When you don’t want bright or conflicting colors, decorating with seashells and sand might be just the answer for they provide texture with subtle color variation. You can use shells collected along the beach or find them at craft and gift stores.

• Fill clear glass bowls or glasses with seashells./li>
• Add seashells to centerpieces or scatter around table when setting up for a meal.
• Create centerpieces by filling glass bowls or hurricane lamps with sand, adding seashells as decoration. Add color with candles and driftwood or holiday greens add interest.
• Create holiday ornaments by tying (or glue) ribbon to single sea shells, large or small. Smaller ones look nice hanging down over windows while large shells are better on a table.

You can decorate with just about any type of natural materials, in similar ways to those listed here. Check to make sure nothing is poisonous if there are pets or children. Have a wonderful holiday and send us photos.