Thrifty mother reveals how to decorate your home for Christmas for free – from a foraged tree to making nail varnish baubles and toilet roll napkin rings

A mum revealed how to decorate her home this Christmas without spending a penny, including finding branches and bushes to build a tree and creating a unique marble effect on baubles using nail polish.

Claire Douglas, 40, from Tunbridge Wells, Kent, specializes in cost-effective and creative home interior designs and has spent years developing her “bespoke approach on a budget”.

From collecting flowers, leaves, sticks and twigs to create rustic garlands and wreaths, to recycling and reusing materials and cardboard packaging for DIY furniture making and texture modeling, Claire has always enjoyed finding cheaper, greener ways to enhance her living space.

This has become especially important for the freelance interiors writer and content creator due to the effects of the cost of living crisis – and with Christmas just around the corner, she wants to offer some helpful tips to help others open their minds to the ways in which they can decorate their homes. without spending money.

Her hacks include decorating baubles with nail polish, finding greenery and using leaves and branches to create a “real tree”, creating Christmas crackers and napkin rings from leftover toilet paper rolls, and even drying fruit on a radiator as an extra decoration for a garland.

Claire also made candle holders and concette-style vases from fabric doilies soaked in a microcement mixture, wrapped empty boxes as extra decorations and created festive arrangements by adding trinkets to bowls – all of which cost her nothing but added style and originality.

“Social media is great, but at this time of year it’s just inundated with people spending obscene amounts of money,” Claire explained.

“You scroll through and it’s almost overwhelming, you just think, ‘I can’t compete with this’… and especially with the cost of living crisis, it puts people off.

“I just wanted to approach it from a different angle. Instead of asking ‘how much money can you spend on this’, there are plenty of other ways that won’t have a negative impact on the planet or your bank balance and can be quite fun… and you can get your kids involved, too.’

Claire has 28,000 followers on TikTok and Instagramand enjoys writing her blog, Claire Douglas Styling, where she posts helpful tips and tutorials on room makeovers for people on a budget. She also offers product recommendations and online courses.

Last year, ahead of the festive season, Claire focused on finding eco-friendly and cheap ways to decorate her home, including building her own Christmas tree from leaves.

Instead of buying a real Christmas tree or upgrading an existing artificial one, she decided to take a more practical and cost-effective approach and forage for food to make her own.

After just a few minutes of walking into her garden, Claire carefully gathered branches, bushes and leaves without damaging the greenery and built a Christmas tree around an existing artificial tree that she no longer used but didn’t want to throw away.

She then added her own embellishments to create an ombre effect. She might even spray paint her tree this year as she plans to build her own again.

Last year, the freelance interiors writer and content creator posted a video of the hack on her TikTok account (@clairedouglasstyling), and it received nearly 900,000 views.

“You can do it the traditional way—just take conifers and make them look like a real tree—or you can get a little more creative,” she said.

“I ended up buying a lot of different shrubs and foliage, everything that was alive in our garden over the winter, and also adding decorations and some color.

“I did it in a pink and silver ombre style a couple of years ago and it looked really good – and again, it didn’t cost anything because we already had the tree and the foliage was free.”

Just recently, Claire posted tutorials on how to turn toilet paper rolls into napkin rings by cutting cardboard to the desired length and adding rope, twine or ribbon.

Her “unique” Christmas baubles are created by adding warm nail polish to water, dipping the baubles or other decoration of choice into the liquid and leaving them to dry.

“It’s fun, you can get the kids involved and be as bold or reserved as you want,” Claire explained.

“You can go crazy with colors, or if you have a more neutral interior palette, you can play with that too.

“There is something for everyone with this approach to home decorating… and you can make fantastic things for free.”

Claire has another holiday hack that involves “improving boring garlands” by adding decorations like painted pinecones or dried fruit.

Instead of shopping or running the oven for hours to dry the fruit, Claire sliced ​​up a few oranges, placed the slices on paper and left them on the radiator.

She used “salt dough” made from flour, salt and water to create Christmas decorations and also used recycled cardboard packaging to make various items, including a coffee table, for her home.

Claire wants to encourage people to embrace mistakes and hopes she can help others decorate their homes creatively while “saving money and waste.”

“This whole project literally started with the cost of living crisis,” Claire said.

“People have found it very difficult at this time of year and the pressure of Christmas can be overwhelming anyway, so I wanted to come up with ideas where you don’t have to spend money.

“So, if there was no way to go out and buy decorations, you could just make things from literally everyday objects around the house.”

She added: “If people are feeling a little frustrated that they don’t have the money or time to spend, there are plenty of ways to influence your home and make it truly festive.”