Tips For Decorating On A Budget

Growing up, my mother always loved to decorate our home for each holiday that we celebrated. Whether it was Christmas, Easter, Independence Day and beyond, she always knew had to spread some festive cheer in our household! Her decorations were always cute without being extravagant and I used to love helping her decorate the house with our family mementoes. They would instantly remind me of holidays past and it always seemed so magical. Her fun holiday accents were never over the top or expensive, but they meant a great deal to us and always stirred up so much emotion and nostalgia. Repeating those moments each year was a wonderful tradition that I knew I wanted to pass down to my own kids one day.

Now that I am a mother, I see the value in making each holiday special for kids. After the year we’ve endured during the pandemic, simple joys took on even greater importance to me. As a parent, I love seeing the magic in my children’s faces when they talk about Santa or The Easter Bunny, and I try to always keep that magic alive by making things as special as possible for them. With all that said, holiday “magic” certainly looks different for every family. After all, we don’t always celebrate the same things, at the same time or in the same way! The most important thing is to find what works for you and do it with all of your heart!

While I love to decorate my house, as you’ve seen on Instagram this week, I really try to keep budget in mind when I shop for any new holiday decor. Here are a few tips that I’ve learned over the past few years:

1. Check out the Dollar Spot at Target, Walmart and Dollar Tree. These stores tend to have cute, seasonal and kid-friendly decor at very reasonable prices. If your children break them or they don’t last the season, it’s not a big deal to toss them away!
2. Check thrift stores. Thrifting has become so popular in recent years, because people realize that it feels great to repurpose items that some people might not want anymore! If you pop in to your local Goodwill or thrift store, you would be shocked at what some families donate and you might just find a treasure that you can give a good home!
3. Use childhood/family decorations. My mother has handed me down quite a few holiday decorations, and I love pulling them out and chatting about them with my kids. For example, my mother always loved Annalee dolls, and now I get to display her old ones in my home and they remind me of my childhood! From snow globes, to stockings or Easter baskets, it’s amazing how small childhood keepsakes can really excite your own kids!
4. Invest in a few nice things. If you are going to buy something expensive for the holiday at hand, try to make sure you’re doing so with high quality pieces that will stand the test of time. That way, you won’t have to worry about spending the money and it not making it through to next year. Whether it’s an expensive ornament or a beautiful floral arrangement, make sure you’re storing them properly and really picking pieces that will carry you through generations!
5. Make your own decor! Sometimes that could be as simple as adding a red ribbon around a boxwood wreath during Christmastime or adding a bunny to an existing floral arrangement. Using what you have and adding simple touches can make your home feel festive without spending a fortune. For these types of accents, I love Michaels or Joanne Fabrics.
6. Take pictures of your decor and save them in an album on your phone. This might sound silly, but it’s really a game changer! With holiday decorations coming out earlier and earlier each year, we sometimes might see cute things and want to buy them without realizing they are very similar to items you may already have. Keeping pictures on your phone to reference back to will help jog your memory about what you already have!
7. Never feel like you HAVE to go all out. There are certain holidays that inspire us, and some that do not. And that’s OK. Christmas is always my absolute favorite, so I always feel called to deck my halls. But Halloween, not so much. I love fall decor, but for some reason Halloween doesn’t do it for me. With that said, I do enough where I feel like I’m not a complete bah humbug but I don’t feel the pressure to do what doesn’t always feel right!

Being a mom on Instagram can be filled with unattainable and unrealistic snapshots of life. That can especially be the case around holidays. I can assure you that not every mom out there is doing the perfect holiday-themed craft or baking up cookies from scratch while their kids sit in perfectly dressed clothes without a single spill. At least, not THIS mom! Y’all, my kids get so messy!! They lose interest in activities and sometimes they throw the occasional tantrum. But they have loads of fun and make fun memories. Not every bit of it might be Instagram-worthy, and that’s quite alright with me. I love sharing content and ideas with you, but it’s not always perfection and I hope to convey that as much as possible! I firmly believe if you’re authentically yourself, then you will find a happy balance between inspiration and aspiration.

Happy Easter, Friends.