Outside Halloween Decorations

Store your Halloween decorations so they will be easily accessible and in one piece year after year. Here's the scoop on how to do just that.

Designate a special color marker, such as the Halloween color orange, to use when labeling the outside of your Halloween decoration storage boxes and containers. This color-coding technique will make them easier to locate.

When you buy plastic storage containers for storing Halloween decorations, ornaments or costumes, make sure that either the lids or the entire container is a Halloween color (usually orange, purple, black or grey). That's another easy way to find your Halloween items at a glance in your garage, closet or attic. Obviously, you'll mostly find these colors at walk-in retailers sometime between September and November. But if you look around, you can problem find them at some online retailers year-round.

Outside Christmas Crafts

There are a huge variety of crafts that you can do with your children to let your Christmas spirit shine. They can be given to others or used to decorate the house. Start after Thanksgiving to allow plenty of crafting time, and to give yourself time to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

Cards.
One great thing you can have your children make to give to others is Christmas cards. These special cards can then be given to grandparents, aunts, uncles, and other friends and family members. Depending on the age of your child you can get more and more complicated for loads of fun.

Outside Christmas Trees

When it comes to celebrating the Christmas season, decorating the Christmas tree is one of the most popular traditions that many homes and families follow. It is usually decorated with Christmas lights and many other colorful decorations like Christmas balls and ribbon and often times, an angel or a star is placed at the very top. Christmas trees are usually evergreen coniferous trees and it is said that the Christmas season wouldn't be complete without the fragrance of the tree taking over the entire living room. It is estimated that every year, 35 million trees are sold. Many prefer cutting the trees themselves but there's nothing more effortless and less hectic than to buy the Christmas trees online.

Outside Christmas Lights

One would think that Christmas lights have been around for as long as Christmas itself. Can any of you imagine Christmas without lights? How would the children find their way in the dark, so early on Christmas morning without them? The history of Christmas lights is intricately tied to the dawn of the modern era, when houses began to be supplied with electricity.

As you are likely aware, Thomas Edison invented the first functioning light bulb back in 1879. A few years later, in 1882, an associate of his first employed the use of lights on his Christmas tree. Edward Johnson was the first to electrically light his family Christmas tree in his New York home. His home was located in one of the first sections of the city to be wired for electricity.

Outdoor Christmas Decorations

Simpler is better when it comes to decorating outdoors. Outdoor Christmas decorations should be centered around your theme, rather than picking and choosing among several themes.

Decorating outdoors can be done many different ways. The choices in outdoor Christmas decorations are overwhelming and you can see this in many people's outdoor displays. When it comes to decorating outside, sometimes you need to remember that less is more.

Fo example, you will be overdressed if you wear your formal gown along with seven diamond bracelets and four diamond necklaces. In much the same way, you want to refrain from overdoing your yard during Christmas. Showing your Christmas spirit is great, but too many Christmas decorations can possibly detract from your outdoor decoration.

Christmas Decorating Ideas

Personally, I find the winter holidays to be the most special time of the year. My mother always made this holiday a wonderful one as she used to decorate the house in all things Christmas. I especially liked her Christmas decorating ideas, so I tried to follow her lead to help my own family enjoy this holiday thoroughly. There is a fine line between festive and flashy and I have always tried to give my best not to cross it. Thus, I have used for my Christmas decorations natural items and lights. I am a candle light lover so I wanted to use it outdoors but I didn't know how. My older sister helped me by giving me the idea to use ice globes in my yard, just as the people in 1970s did because of the energy crisis.

Handmade Christmas Decorations

How many of us at Christmas time end up spending a fortune on gifts for friends and family, which are not the least bit personal, and we end up regreting it afterwards? These days we often get caught up in the rush of the holiday season to spend more on gifts, when in fact we could spend less money giving great presents if we applied ourselves to hand making them. Here today I will bring you a lovely selection of ideas that are quite easy and affordable.

1. Collect and make recipe books. Find recipes in magazines or on the Internet. Copy them on the computer and print out on stationary . A office supply store can bind it together for you for about $5 or $10 dollars.

Outside Christmas Decorations

Decorating for Christmas is one of the best parts of the holiday season. Here are some simple tips that will help anyone from a novice designer working on their first yard to old pros who have been decorating for years.

A common question is when you should start decorating. This varies greatly by culture and region, even in the United States. The basic rule, though, is that you can decorate anytime after Thanksgiving. We always do it the second week of December, and I used to have neighbors who would do all of their decorating on Christmas Eve.

Putting up outside Christmas decorations can take hours, or even an entire weekend. The best way to cut down on that time is to start with a good plan.

Christmas Ornaments

The holiday tree is the customary place we all love to admire ornaments & Christmas displays are not complete until the entire tree is trimmed and all the presents are underneath wrapped and ready to be opened for everyone to enjoy the holiday season. You can really find many different styles of ornaments depending on your particular style it’s just a matter of figuring out what you are trying to achieve. Take a look at what the rest of your home looks like, if you tend to have more contemporary items find ornaments or trendy colors schemes for your ornaments. Christmas is that time of the year where we all get to go a little overboard in our decor. Now if you are a little more on the traditional side in your decorative choices you can easily find some traditional ornaments for your Christmas tree.

Christmas Crafts

Christmas crafts can be made from a variety of materials. If you like working with wood, you can cut out typical holiday designs, like snowmen, Christmas trees, or Santa figures and then spend some time painting to bring life to your Christmas crafts. There are many websites that offer free patterns to make these items, or you can print an image from your computer and use it to create your own pattern. If it's your first time working with wood as a Christmas craft, start out simply- cut out a rectangle and make a sign for your holiday guests! You could paint little trees or stars, and print out “May all your Christmas wishes come true!” or a similar saying.

Great Halloween Decorations

Halloween decorations made by The Beistle Company are some of the most popular collectibles among fans of vintage holiday decorations. Specializing in paper party supplies such as die-cuts, centerpieces and paper plates and cups, The Beistle Company has been manufacturing Halloween novelty décor and supplies since the beginning of the 20th century. Founded in Pennsylvania by Martin Beistle, The Beistle Company is still in business today and is one of the largest manufacturers of Halloween goods in the US. But for collectors, it isn’t Beistle’s new products that cause the most interest. It’s their highly sought after vintage Halloween decorations that have become highly collectible.

Great Christmas Lights

Christmas is a festive occasion, which has been celebrated with great ceremony for many a year. It has always been associated with a feeling of rejuvenation and spiritual refinement; the time around this festive occasion is one where every heart is filled with the illuminating light of faith, hope and spirituality. The celebrations as well as the decoration which is universally seen during Christmas time also reflect this feeling. This is the reason why we use lights at Christmas; they are used to illuminate the whole world, doing away with the darkness and glom of misery.

Great Holiday Crafts

Kids, young and the young at heart, love the holidays and there are an almost limitless number of crafts that can be made to keep the kids busy, especially when the weather gets bad and they are home from school. Many projects can be done with common items found around the house.

Paper snowflakes are always a favorite and all you need is white paper, scissors and possibly glue and glitter. Fold the paper in half, half again and again, until you have a triangle. Cut small shapes, unfold carefully, you have beautiful one of a kind snowflakes. If you have glue and glitter, the kids may want to make them a bit fancier. They also make wonderful decorations to hang from the ceiling and windows for the holidays.

Great Halloween Pumpkins

Halloween inspires all kinds of activities to do with your toddler, especially pumpkin fun! Visiting the pumpkin patch together, shopping for (or making) Halloween costumes, and decorating the house. But one of the best Halloween activities is doing art projects together.

Here are two very simple pumpkin crafts that every toddler will enjoy. Prepare for the activity in advance, so your little ball of energy can dive right in.

Simple Paper Jack-o-Lantern
There's nothing at all fancy about this idea. Simply cut a few pumpkins out of orange construction paper. Then, cut several triangles and a few big goofy grins out of either black or yellow paper. Lastly, cut a stem shape and leaves out of green or brown paper.

Great Halloween Decorations

Craft foam is sold in sheets at the craft store in a whole array of colors. It is similar to construction paper, but made of thin, durable foam you can easily cut with scissors. Trace simple Halloween shapes onto the backside of the foam sheets and cut out. Use contrasting colors and a glue stick to add details such as a jack o lantern face, red eyes on a bat, or the face of a silly ghost. You can make these cutouts as large or as small as you want. Hang them in windows or hang them with clear thread form curtain rods, doorways, or in your front entry. (This works really well with bats, hang them from the tips of each wing, and one place on the body to make them appear to be flying) These can even be used on protected porches as the foam is water resistant.

Need some quick Halloween decorations, that even the kids can help with? Here are three great Halloween decorating ideas using easy to find, inexpensive materials.

Great Homemade Christmas Gifts

Is your Christmas list starting to look like a telephone book? It's time to consider making your own gifts. Here are several easy ideas for wonderful homemade Christmas gifts.

* Winter Warm-Up Baskets with Homemade Marshmallows and Hot Chocolate

You can purchase hand-crafted marshmallows in a gourmet store like Williams Sonoma, for $15-$18 or simply make your own.

Place 4-6 marshmallows into a clear plastic bag and tie with a decorative ribbon. Put the marshmallows in decorative fortune cookie boxes (found at your local craft store) or put them in a decorative basket with gourmet hot chocolate and holiday mugs.