All Lit Up – DIY Holiday Lights

Becoming homeowners this year has brought along a lot of firsts. This month is the first time we are decorating the exterior of our house for Christmas.

My husband, Cruz, and I decided to start small this year and slowly add one or two things to each year’s decorations. I knew I wanted to do traditional decorations and keep them pretty simple. He knew he wanted white lights. We found most of our decorations at Job Lot and the At Home store.

After I sketched out a quick idea Cruz and I went shopping to solidify the idea. Cruz decided on icicle lights and for this year strung them above our garage. It took 4 packs of lights to cover the length and side of the garage.

At Job Lot, I found these inexpensive bows and knew I could deconstruct them and get more than one bow out of them. I also found a pair of pre-lit artificial trees and some pre-lit garland. At the At Home store, I found more pre-lit garlands and a pre-lit wreath.

The first thing I did was take apart the large bows. Deconstructing them gave me the option of having 2 different size bows. I used the larger bows in their entirety and wrapped and tied them around our faux boxwood planters.

I added the smaller bow portions to the fake tree planters.

Even with the bows, I felt like the trees needed something more than just the lights. So I added sparkling wire-rimmed ribbon to each tree.

The last thing Cruz and I did was hang the pre-lit garlands. Instead of letting the garland hang down the door, we decided to wrap it around itself and create faux wreaths.

Once we had the garlands in place, I fluffed the garlands and shaped the faux wreaths tying in the smaller bow portions onto the wreath bottoms.

We love how the decorations look! It’s just enough for our first year in our new home. Next year I’d like to add wreaths to the front-facing windows and Cruz would like to add more icicle lighting. But for now, we are enjoying this moment and all the fun the Christmas season brings.