Christmas season can drain the bank account quickly when buying gifts, holiday food, wrapping paper, and driving the kids to their Christmas pageants and holiday season parties. One place that you can truly save some money and let your personality and creativity shine is when trimming your tree. Consider making your own Christmas tree decorations and ornaments? It is a fun activity that the whole family can be involved in. Plus, it can be done quite affordably.

Before beginning this great activity, think about all the small items in the house that might fit on the Christmas tree. Consider everything from toys to sewing items. Decorating for the holidays does not have to include crystal from Neiman-Marcus. You can create a beautifully decorated Christmas tree with items currently spread around your house.

For example, you can decorate colored glass balls you already have by using adhesive spray and glitter. On the other hand, a glue gun can be used to glue on some special sequins or jewels picked up at the local craft store. Yarn, ribbon, raffia, stickers and even old buttons can be used as well. If you have old bits of lace, velvet or other favorite fabric, try trimming them into a special shape, such as a star or a heart, and affix them to the glass ornament.

Another easy money saver is to use seasonal greeting cards you receive. Since you typically receive beautiful greeting cards each year during the holidays, they are easy to come by and very cheap. Why not use some of those favorite ones from the year before and decorate this season’s tree? You can use the entire card if you like, or you can simply clip out the pictures or scenes on the front that are your favorite and use them to make ornaments. You could also use these to decoupage a glass ornament.

Additionally, small children’s toys work great as ornaments. You may need to do some talking with the younger children at first to acquire them, but small cars, dolls, farm animals, blocks, beads, and even puzzle pieces can be creatively worked into a theme for the Christmas tree. Look around your house and see what old toys you can find and incorporate them into your scheme. You could even work in some larger sized toys to decorate around the base of your tree.

You could even bake ornaments for your tree. If you are a baker at heart and your family and friends love your treats, a cookie tree will surely be welcome. Gingerbread boys and girls would be a hit. Of course, you can place a small hole in the top of any cookie you bake and hang from the tree using a pretty ribbon. Embellish your cookies with some pretty colored sugar or icing, or simply make up some dough that you can bake and then paint and decorate later.

Children young and old can get involved in the ornament making fun. Get out those crayons, paints, colored construction paper, and glue and put them to work! You could incorporate your favorite Christmas wrap and ribbon as well. Have children date each ornament they make, so you’ll all be able to enjoy it for years after. You might have so much fun doing this that you might want to have an annual event to make Christmas tree decorations and ornaments each holiday season prior to putting up the tree.

And don’t be afraid to use things that are just lying around your house that you’d probably otherwise toss or leave in the bottom of the junk drawer. Old earrings and jewelry, feathers, felt, colorful pencil erasers, canceled stamps, and fish aquarium marbles and rocks can all find new life as part of your decorated or homemade ornaments.

More often than not, you will come up with an excess of ideas and items to make Christmas tree decorations and ornaments. Consider the possibilities and consider the fun. Your whole family will enjoy the time together decorating the Christmas tree.

As editor and author for several gift related websites, Loren Bailey writes to provide helpful tips and suggestions for online consumers as found in the Christmas decorating article above. He contributes regularly sharing his thoughts and ideas to assist online shoppers in making more qualified decisions about their purchases.