Lights, Paper, Christmas!

So, I think our Christmas decorating is pretty much done for the season.  We don't have a ton of store bought Christmas decorations but since we'll be spending Christmas at home this year, I definitely wanted the house to feel more festive.  Well, thanks to my recent addiction to pinterest I was able to add a few inexpensive, homemade decorations to our trimmings.  Homemade and inexpensive are good vocabulary in our house right now.  Not only because we're always trying to save money but because a certain 2 1/2 foot tall resident has a very long reach and a case of the grabsies.  I'm pretty convinced that with a little more crafting time I could have decorated the entire house using mostly paper and some lights. 

Have I mentioned how much Kaelyn loves Christmas lights.  After lighting the tree we had two extra sets of lights that didn't match, so... of course there is now a set hanging in her bedroom and our bedroom.  Kind of reminds me of decorating our dorm room in college.  Festive none the less.

Sorry, I don't have a picture of the lights in our room because they're around the bed and I'm too lazy to make the bed but too ashamed to take a picture for you to see our unmade bed.  Maybe if you come to visit I'll actually make the bed and you can see how cute they look.

I used some cheap Ikea frames, a free printable I found through pinterest, scrapbook paper (50% off! even cheaper), cookie cutters and twine (also 50% off!) to make these beauties.

And then I found some cheap labor to make these paper ornaments to hang from our dining room chandelier (aka, the light in our kitchen).

You can also see the paper Christmas trees she made on the back door.

And then one day while I was trying to ignore Brennan's cries during nap time, I became a little obsessed with making paper snowflakes.  I wish I could take all the credit for them but I followed some templates found on other people's blogs.  The snowflakes themselves turned out pretty cool, but I didn't get quite the effect I was going for hanging them from the fan/light in the living room.  Too bad I'm too lazy to take them down and try hanging them somewhere else.  They'll probably still be hanging there at Brennan's birthday party in March.

I've pinned about a million more projects I thought would be cool to do, but I don't think I'll ever actually find the time this year.  Maybe I'll deck the halls with some more paper crafts next year.  Now it's time to focus on baking!

So, the lesson here is paper + lights = Christmas.  Oh, and I guess a tree and some stockings help a little.  :)