Decorate Your Christmas Tree Under $100

The holidays are a good blizzard or two away and it's time to start decorating your wonderful Christmas tree. You want to be classy, but you're financially savvy and would rather not spend too much on the tree. Think $100 is too little to make an awe-inspiring statement? Think again. I'll show how you can make a great Christmas tree for under a $100 - tree and all.

Let's first start with the tree. Right now Target is having a great tree sale. I bought my 6' feet tall, clear lighted tree for $45. It was the Prelit Alberta Spruce. Online it is listed for $51. You can purchase the same type of tree with multicolored lights for $51 as well. This tree is easy to set-up. It took maybe a half hour to separate all the small branches, but it looks great! Put some Christmas music on to get you in the mood to decorate! That half hour will speed by. If you already have a tree, then you're set and can save more cash! So, let's move onto the decor. My color scheme for this year is gold and white.You can adjust to your own color choices. If you already have some pieces you can reuse for the tree, feel free to do so! I will be using all newly purchased decor, but that doesn't mean you have to! Save more, give more!

For the garland portion of the tree, I decided to use ribbon. Jo-Ann Fabrics has a sale of 50% off on ribbons. I bought gold ribbon (3.75 In wide and 50 ft in length) for $7.49. Normal price is $14.99. You can purchase another color of ribbon, pair the two together, and create a sophisticated look playing off the two colors instead of one. I wanted to keep it simple this year so I stuck with just the gold.

Now the fun part! Blubs and other ornaments!
I was originally going to purchase my blubs from the Dollar store, but after a bit of research, Target offers a much better price per blub. Since I needed a lot of them, I purchased a 50 piece set from Target for $15. That gets the price down to 30 cents per blub. Not bad eh? I also purchased ornament hooks for $1. I ended up not using all 50 blubs, but I used about 30. I recommend that if you are looking to get a couple of blubs, the Dollar store is the place to go.

In addition to the blubs, I did pick up some varied pieces from the Dollar Store. I selected a couple of gold and silver pieces shaped as glittering reindeer, angels, bows, flowers, crosses, and icicles. I spent $9 for about 20 extra pieces. These brought the whole project together, but I wasn't quite done yet.

For the top, I picked up a large gold star from the Dollar Store. If you have left over ribbon from the garland portion of decorating, you can choose to use that and make a bow for the top instead of buying one. It can create a neat affect, appearing as if the garland ribbon is flowing down from the top.

And finally, the tree skirt. I dabbled on the idea of making my own tie blanket version of a Christmas tree skirt, but decided against it. Instead I picked up a bag of stuffing from Jo-Ann Fabrics. It was only $6.99 and it graciously covers the surrounded area of my tree bottom. Plus it will look great when presents are arranged on top.

So, there you have it! With tax, we have a fully decorated Christmas tree for $90.21! Under budget bliss! Decorating your tree on a budget this year? Send a photo to me at lydialharrrer@gmail with a description or comment below! I'd love to hear your ideas on DIY decorating ideas or how you strategized for decorating on a budget.

New Challenges #3 and #4

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been adjusting to full time employment. It is wonderful, but I have not forgotten my challenges I proposed back in August - New Challenges For This Twenty-Two Year Old. My first two new challenges involved trying to drive manual and learning how to golf. This time my two, new things I learned how to do are: eat pomegranates and get my truck towed. Obviously, one was far more intended than the other, but it was a learning experience nonetheless!

I've never eaten pomegranates before and I recently tried it at a friend's house. She had frozen the seeds and used them as a great snack item! I love finding new ways to eat better, so I had to give it a try once I returned home. I was lucky that they happened to be on sale!

If you've never handled a pomegranate before their skin is pretty hard. I was unsure how to open it and I suggest you do it with caution. The Correct Way to Eat a Pomegranate is great video tutorial on how to open a pomegranate. Of all the ones I looked at, I found this to be the best way. 

The juices in this fruit can stain. I cut them open on a large, dark cutting board. You may want to wear an apron, just in case some juice squirts out. The seeds are surrounded by thin membranes and you need to peel these away to eat the seeds. I suppose you could eat the membrane, but I read that it is bitter. The seeds, however, are sweet and tart. They are surrounded by a soft shell which encases the juice around a seed. They may have little, hard seeds inside. I eat them, but spitting them out is acceptable.

While I did enjoy them fresh, I still loved the idea of keeping them frozen and ready for a quick snack. Two pomegranates filled these bowls so you do not need to buy many fruits to reap a great harvest. If you are looking for a better at-home snack in your life, I would suggest adding pomegranates to your grocery list. I wish I would have known about them sooner!

The other new challenge happened a couple days ago. I have been having truck trouble over the past week due to the cold temperatures now slipping down from Canada. I replaced my battery on Thursday and thankfully it lasted through work Friday, which happened to be the day of my first event. My event finished and as I tried to start my truck to go home for the weekend, it did not start. It was turning over, but it never caught. I had figured in addition to the old battery, there was something else wrong. I will not know till sometime Monday, but I am thinking I have a loose belt or the alternator needs to be fixed. I would be in love if it just happens to be a spark plug!

Anyways, my co-worker came to the rescue and she called AAA for me. Then we waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. She ended up calling four times over the course of almost two hours. Needless to say, she was quite unhappy with the quality of service from AAA and I felt awful that she was there waiting with me. The towing guy did not help the situation. He had no idea where we were and we had to direct him on how to find us. He even drove by once. When he did finally get to us, he seems to be a novice at the profession and I watched carefully as he loaded my giant Yukon XL onto a flat bed.

I asked him if he had the address information for where I requested to drop the truck off. His response was, "Yeah, it's somewhere on my phone." I don't know about you, but this was not a good response for me. I did not want him on his phone driving a flat bed with MY large vehicle on the back. When he had "finished" loading, my co-worker drove to the side of his truck and reconfirmed he knew where he was going. I noticed he still had chains hanging off the rear end. I told him he had chains hanging to which he replied, "Oh crap. Yeah, I got to get those."

As he jumped down from his tow truck, I looked at my co-worker in disbelief and was sincerely horrified at his lack of concern for my vehicle, doing his job correctly, and overall safety in escorting my vehicle.

Thankfully, my truck is now safely out of his hands and resting at a mechanic shop till Monday. I cannot wait to get my baby back!

Learning how to eat a pomegranate will not drastically change my life, and dealing with one bad towing experience won't make me cynical. However, I do believe it is these little moments that make up an individual. Sure, big things happen that can twist your course, but the smaller ones develop your mind, heart, and soul.

I have a couple larger challenges prepped for December and I can't wait to let you see what I'm planning! In the meantime, I want you to try something new today! If you do, be sure to leave a comment!

The First Week of a New Job

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So I've entered the next chapter of my life and have started "Making it in the Real World" per se. I am excited. I am scared. I am not ready. There is no way to be ready until you are thrown in.

I dove in head first.

Last Monday was my first day of employment at the corporate headquarters of a credit union in Green Bay, WI. My official title is Event Specialist, but this encompasses so many different areas - marketing, event planning, public relations, social media, and writing to name a few. I work within a growing marketing department and I even get my own office! It's the bee's knees!

Need to fill it in a bit more and make it homey!

My first week was filled with HR paperwork, training details, and meeting many, many faces. For someone bad at names, it's a little terrifying! But I'm delving into my position. I'm working on two events within the next month and I am currently learning about ones coming in the future. I've already had a couple of meetings and I'm beginning to take control of the events side of this position.

 But I still have so much to learn. I'm developing a donation/sponsorship request evaluation system within the next three weeks. I'm taking the lead for our social media outlets. I'm learning financial and marketing lingo specific to this organization. And I am connecting with the voice and culture of this place.

But I really need to get better at internal meetings.

Seriously. I am still struck with a bit of fear when we hold department meetings. I shouldn't be! I am intimated by my lack of experience; however, my co-workers are doing their best to bring my voice out. Even though there are age differences between most of my co-workers and me, we are all on equal footing and I hope to shake off this newbie syndrome soon. I want to be better so this next week I am going to focus on speaking, (as my boss says), transparently.

So, wish me luck for the coming week. I have a couple of projects, but I want to continue growing and developing this position into my pride and joy! I want to take this organization to new heights with their engagement to the members and communities. I just need to remember to take it one step at a time and not over-whelm myself too quickly. As Ron Swanson would say, "Never half-ass two things, whole-ass one thing."



Remember your first week on the job or recently started yourself? What were/are your biggest fears and what did/do you want to get better at? Comments always welcome! :)