If your decor is looking tired – or you’re just plain tired of it – the holiday season is a good time to gift yourself with a few new items that will also refresh your home for guests. It’s easy to make a big decorating impact if you focus on sprucing up areas like windows, furnishings and walls. Consider these helpful hints:

Windows


The cheapest, most high-impact way to make windows look better is to wash them. Seriously. For the price of a roll of paper towels and some window cleaner – and some elbow grease – you can make your windows look great, not to mention brighten the entire room.

Once your windows are sparkling, reward yourself for your hard work with some new window treatments. If the holiday hustle and bustle leaves little time for a run to the home decor store, online resources like SeventhAvenue.com make it fast and easy to shop for curtains. Whether you opt for traditional or contemporary, replace curtains in rooms where guests are most likely to gather, such as the kitchen, living room or family room. To top off the holiday spirit of your new curtains, replace standard tie-backs with some festive holiday bows.

Furnishings

Replacing every stick of worn-looking furniture in your home’s “public areas” probably isn’t practical for your budget with the expenses of the holiday season looming. But you can refresh the furniture you have with a few simple steps:

* Make sure it’s clean. Polish wood surfaces and vacuum upholstery. Dust and dirt will never be a designer statement.

* Dress up older pieces with new cushions and pillows in eye-catching colors and patterns. A fresh pop of color can draw the eye away from less attractive surfaces.

* If your furniture is just too tired-looking and replacing it is not in the budget, consider concealment. Slip covers and colorful throws are cost-effective ways to refresh older couches, loveseats, dining room chairs, armchairs and even recliners. Choose ones that accentuate your holiday theme, such as “Snowball” slip covers that offer a plush feel and bright colors in a material with a raised, snowball-like pattern.

Walls

Walls are usually the largest design element in any room, and updating them can completely rewrite the profile of a space.

Painting walls is a low-cost, low-labor way to refresh a room’s atmosphere and set the stage for a whole new look – even if you just put the same furniture back into the freshly painted room. Giving walls a fresh coat of paint is well within the capabilities for most do-it-yourselfers, but if you’ve never painted before or are hesitant to take on the project just before the holidays, there are other ways to liven up your walls.

Changing wall decor can be fast, effective and fun. Sometimes simply moving a well-loved piece of art from one room to another is enough to make you see the piece – and the room – in a new light. Or, if you crave something new without the hassle of in-store shopping during the holiday season, you can find wall decor from framed art and mirrors to wall hangings and tapestries online at websites like SeventhAvenue.com.

The holidays and their hectic pace may make it hard to fight your own fatigue, but you don’t have to face the season – and all your house guests – with tired home decor. A few simple, cost-effective upgrades can make your home bright again this holiday season.

The post Easy, cost-effective decor upgrades to ‘wow’ your holiday guests first appeared on River View Observer.

 While gift-buying consumes the lionâ€s share of most budgets, holiday decorating doesnâ€t have to be expensive. A little ingenuity goes a long way!

Here are a host of ways you can decorate your home without spending a bundle this year:

Round up whatever teddy bears are living in your home and arrange them in a chair.

• Give them bright red ribbon neckpieces and pile small, brightly-wrapped packages and on their laps.
• Cut lacy snowflakes from heavy white paper and hang them in your windows suspended from red and green ribbons.
• Buy some small ornaments and hang them on your houseplants. Use skinny gold ribbon instead of hangers for an especially festive touch.
• Collect the prettiest pine cones you can find an spray paint them gold and silver, covering some completely with paint and letting some of the natural color show on others. Pile them into a basket, put the biggest, fanciest ribbon you can fin on the handle and set near your fireplace or on your porch near your front door.
• Buy a big, inexpensive clear glass bowl (flea markets, thrift stores, and dollar stores are good bets for these) and fill it with individually wrapped candy canes of peppermints for family and guests to enjoy.
• Make cookie cutter do dual duty: After youâ€ve finished your holiday baking, hang them on your tree.
• Gift wrap your front door with fancy foil paper. Glue a red ribbon diagonally from top to bottom.
• Make a collage of old Christmas cards, put it in an inexpensive frame and hang it on your wall.
• Use evergreen boughs liberally. If you donâ€t have any evergreen trees of your own, contact tree trimming services in your area and ask if you can get some for free. Make evergreen garlands and wrap them around stair and deck railings and drape them from your fireplace mantel, using plaid taffeta or red velvet ribbon to secure them with inside and red weatherproof ribbon outside.
• Group several white or ivory candles of different sizes and heights together in the middle of your coffee table on a fireproof plate. Stick brightly colored Christmas ornaments around and between them and edge the arrangement with small pieces of evergreen. Make sure greenery is far enough away that it wonâ€t catch fire.
• Spend an evening with the kids stringing popcorn and cranberries to use as garland decorations on your tree.
• Make some spicy pomanders by sticking whole cloves into oranges and lemons, making sure to cover the entire surfaces of the fruit. When completed, pile into a large glass bowl and use as a centerpiece or wrap in lacy ribbon and hang in closets to lend a lovely holiday scent now and repel moths later.
• Tie bunches of cinnamon sticks with red, green or plaid ribbon. Use in arrangements of greens on mantels, end tables and elsewhere to lend an additional wonderful scent.
• If you have any old toys such as vintage train sets, arrange them around the base of your Christmas tree.

Implementing any or all of these holiday decorating ideas can be a fun experience that involves the entire family and perfectly expresses the spirit of the season.

Read more Holiday Ideas

The post Quick and Inexpensive Holiday Decorating Ideas first appeared on River View Observer.

 COUNT DOWN TO THE 2011 HOLIDAY SEASON

                                                                                                                                       

(ARA) “Tis the season for making merry. Whether you are celebrating a traditional family holiday at home or entertaining some friends for a festive cocktail party, use decorations to transform your home into a winter wonderland this holiday season.

Here are some quick and simple holiday decorating tips from the experts at ProFlowers:

Classic Country Christmas
Your family tends to make all of your holiday decorations from scratch, and everyone pitches in while stringing the popcorn to go around your oversized Christmas tree. This year, take your homemade decorating a step further and transform your home into a festive country cottage. Hang pinecone garland, bought or homemade, along your staircase to bring the outdoors inside. For an added country touch, add plaid red and white ribbons to your garland. Hanging greenery on your mantel is always a classic touch, and this year you can take it a step further by sprinkling fake snow on the greenery to give your home a cozy feeling.
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Modern Holiday
The thought of hanging red and green patterned stockings from your fireplace makes you quiver. You prefer to celebrate the holidays in a minimalist way. You would love to bring the merriment of the holidays indoors without overdoing it, so what can you do? Instead of hanging them on your wall, try placing small evergreen wreathes on your dining room table or side table with votive candles in the center. This innovative candelscape will smell great and look festive without screaming HO! HO! HO! You can also try decorating your fireplace mantel with fragrant pines or topiaries in vases that have classic, clean lines.Retro Revival
If the smell of eggnog takes you back to the tinsel and brightly colored glass ornaments of your youth, you might be longing for a retro holiday. Bring back those feelings by breaking out your old boxes of ornaments and even making some of your own with old photos and retro patterned fabric. Keep your table centerpieces simple by running your table with red, orange and yellow candles set among fresh smelling evergreen.

Holiday Cocktail Party
Celebrating the holidays with some friends and some warm cocktails? Spruce up your dining room or kitchen by hanging evergreen boughs from a chandelier or lighting fixture. Gather up a few sprigs of greenery after trimming your Christmas tree and tie with a red bow to use at your place settings. You can also use these extra bits of evergreen as a substitute for real mistletoe, which is actually poisonous and dangerous for children and pets.

Whether your style is traditional, modern or just plain over-the-top, you will find the perfect holiday collection to suit your needs this holiday season at www.proflowers.com.

Courtesy of ARAcontent

The post DECOR -What’s Your Holiday Decorating Style? first appeared on River View Observer.