We save (or I do) my Christmas decorations, tree ornaments and even the leftover wrapping paper and cards, for the next Christmas holidays. I like to save the cards people have sent me too. But, what can you do with broken ornaments, decorations you weren’t that fond of or when you just have more decorations than space to store them?

Recycle Christmas Ornaments

Use Christmas ornaments or cards to decorate a picture frame. Use a large frame for a painting or smaller frames for photographs. Cut and paste the images from the cards and turn them into a collage of artwork. Use the photo frames for photographs you took during the holidays. Family photos or something beautiful you saw one day – like the perfect winter scene.

Broken decorations are also nice to use on a frame. But, be careful with anything sharp. Some broken ornaments are very thin and are not easy to work with. If you have broken fragile ornaments and don’t want to try gluing them back together for next year, then glue them to something else. Add some glitter and shine to a plant pot. Press the pieces deeply into the glue so you won’t have them falling off as the pot gets moved around.

Recycle Christmas Lights

Ornaments and lights which are not broken can be used to upcycle an old light. Pick a light you already have or have fun decorating a vintage (or secondhand) chandelier from the bargain bin. Paint it some groovy colour. Add a string of Christmas lights looped around it. Hang ornaments from it. If you have the old Christmas light bulbs you can even use those in place of the light bulbs in the light itself. Live in blue, green, red… pick your colour for the evening.

You can reuse strings of Christmas lights for many occasions. If you have strings in one colour twine them together with plain white and wrap them around stair bannisters, outdoors or indoors. Quick and pretty decorations for a birthday party, Valentines Day, St. Patrick’s Day, depending on the colour of the lights. A string of multi coloured lights can decorate and give you extra light downstairs (if you have a basement, laundry room, etc.) A string of lights can colour your world and they are made energy efficient these days so they don’t take a lot of power to stay on as long as you would like.