Holiday Gifts & Décor Organization Ideas

In our first Holiday Survival Guide we’ll cover gifts, décor and organization ideas, including:

1. Inexpensive and eco-friendly gift wrap ideas using items from around your home.
2. Free Holiday Décor suggestions using elements found in nature.
3. Homemade gift ideas including a recipe for Heloise’s Bath Salts.

1. Saving on holiday gift-wraps. You can create your own unique wrapping by reusing and recycling materials you have at home. Tear out the sheets from your children’s coloring books or school artwork and use to wrap small gifts, or tape several together for larger gifts. Grandparents especially will delight in opening their gift and will probably save the paper! Save the color comics pages from the newspaper to cover children’s presents or use black and white pages and let your children color them in. Repurpose lovely scarves that you aren’t wearing to wrap a girlfriend’s gift. Reuse gift bows, ribbon and yarn. Remember, if a ribbon or bow is “rumpled,” you can usually use a curling iron (on warm!) to iron out the wrinkles. Old maps that are clogging the glove box make fun wrapping paper for someone who drives a lot! Brown grocery store bags cut to size and tied with a bow can work too.

2. Making natural and free decorations for your home. Look outside your house or take a walk in the park for winter decorations. Pick up pinecones or the boughs of fir trees or holly bushes with red berries. Use above the fireplace or as a centerpiece for the table. Jazz up with glitter or festive ribbons and you can spray paint them gold, silver or red to match your holiday decor. I have done this many times and it’s amazing how beautiful it looks! One year, I wacked off several small branches of a pine tree, sprayed them gold, and placed apples and pinecones through out and used it as a runner for my dinner table. Be sure to let the paint dry and air out before bringing them inside.

3. Creating homemade gifts. You can make lovely bath salts using Epsom salts bought at the drug store. Put in a decorative jar or put several bottles of essential oils for relaxing along with a bath mitt or brush in a basket as a one of a kind gift.

Heloise’s Bath Salts
Combine 3 cups of Epsom salt, 1 tablespoon of glycerin, a bit of your favorite perfume or essential oils, such as peppermint, bergamot, rose or lavender, in a glass or metal bowl (you can add a few drops of food coloring, if you want). Put 1/2 cup or more of the mixture into the hot bath.

Don’t forget gift certificates for relatives that can include a day helping out around the house, cleaning the auto, running errands or just some time together at the museum or shopping. Many times, older relatives or friends don’t need things! They want your company and face time, so be creative and think about what they might enjoy.

Happy Holidays, 

Heloise