27 Simple Ways To Turn Everyday Décor Into Christmas Décor

Save money and reduce storage needs when you make your year-round décor work harder. Here’s 27 ways to turn your everyday décor Christmassy!

Ornaments

Mug filled with hot chocolate and marshmallows surrounded by stacked cosy throws, baubles, cookie cutters, fairy lights and a small tealight house.

Much as we adore the Christmas décor in the shops, sometimes we just want to make use of our everyday home décor when it comes time to decorate for the holidays. Whether it’s to save money on decorations, avoid more items to store in the off-season, or simply to make the most of what we’ve already got, there’s lots of reasons to turn our year-round décor Christmassy.

We’ve got heaps of easy, cheap (often free!) ways to sprinkle a little festive over the items already adorning your sideboards and walls.

The Golden Rule

A lot of these ideas are so simple you’ll wonder why you aren’t doing them already! You may already be incorporating a few without realising too. But all have one golden rule in common.

Whenever you’re thinking how to repurpose your everyday décor for Christmas, think beyond the obvious. Don’t just think about the normal ways in which that product is used.

e.g. placemats can look fabulous as wall art, mirrors make brilliant sparkly trays, cookie cutters are cute ornaments, and glasses & small jugs are perfect mini vases for sprigs of foliage.

27 Ways To Turn Everyday Home Décor Christmassy

1. Refill Your Photo Frames

Replace or temporarily cover photos in frames with Christmas wrapping paper or family Christmas photos. Or find Christmas decals online to print out at home and add yourself.

Check out our free ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas printable wall art.

Three picture frames each filled with wrapping paper.

Replace pictures with wrapping in frames.

2. Wrap Your Cushions

Wrap cushions in old Christmas jumpers for an instant Christmas cushion. No sewing required – check out our hack that was shared by Channel 5!

Or use small throws and oversized scarves to turn your cushions into presents!

3. Add Fairy Lights

Adding fairy lights to anything makes it look festive so sprinkle liberally throughout your home.

Fill jars with fairy lights

4. Layer Fabrics

Make full use of any throws, blankets or scarves that complement your Christmas décor colours. Drape over chairs, on the edge of sofas, bottom of beds, etc. Layers of cosy fabric are bound to have people thinking about the cosiest time of year.

5. Display Foraged Branches

Fill vases, jugs and even simple glasses with foraged bare branches and hang a few Christmas decorations to complete the look.

Bare branch in a glass with four teal baubles hanging from it and a few pine cones, kraft wrapped gifts and fairy lights at its base.

Hang decorations from bare branches

6. Fill Plant Pots Too

Use the same bare branch technique on a larger scale outside with a plant pot or metal container. Immediate festive impact, perfect for the front door.

7. Group Candles

Gathering candles together on a tray makes a pretty cosy display. Add a festive decoration or sprig of foliage to complete the effect.

5 lit candles on a tray decorated with a spray of frosted cranberries and a woolly throw.

Gather candles on trays

8. DIY Shiny Trays

For maximum festive sparkle, make your own reflective trays and double the twinkle! Wrap regular trays in silver foil or use mirrors as trays on which to gather shiny trinkets, with fairy lights and candles.

9. Repurpose Old Jars

Repurpose old jars as sideboard or tablescape décor with an Epsom salt snow-effect and small decorations inside. Or even just fill them with fairy lights.

10. Display Your Christmas Mugs

Set up a hot chocolate station and let your Christmas mugs act as the décor in the kitchen!

Hot chocolate station with Father Christmas mugs on a tray with flasks behind.

Display your Christmas mugs

11. Make Use Of Curtain Rails

Create a stunning window display by hanging baubles from ribbons with different drop lengths along the curtain rail of curtains you don’t need to close.

12. Repurpose Cookie Cutters

Once the baking is complete, add ribbon to your Christmas cookie cutters and use them as ornaments.

13. Fill Bowls With Baubles

Add spare baubles to bowls, vases, and other vessels around your home to add a sprinkle of Christmas.

Metal bowl filled with pale pink baubles.

Gather baubles in bowls or vases

14. Add A Simple Swag

Make a simple swag with foraged foliage, baubles and ribbon and hang from a cupboard handle, on a mirror, back of a chair, bed post, etc.

Simple pine swag with pinecones and a few redcurrants and red bow hanging from a doorway.

Add a simple Christmas swag

15. DIY A Table Runner

Run a roll of good quality Christmas wrapping paper down the centre of your table for an instant festive table runner effect.

16. Add Presents!

Get your wrapped presents out on display as soon as possible! Don’t want to risk the real things getting damaged? Wrap a few fake gifts instead.

17. Add Paper Decorations

Hang paper fans and snowflakes from pictures on the wall.

Table decorated for a North Pole Breakfast with three pictures on the wall behind each with a paper fan hanging from them.

Hang paper decorations from picture frames

18. Cover Your Furniture

If you have spare bedsheets that match your festive palette, give your footstool or sofa a temporary new cover by neatly covering it.

19. Decorate Your Candle Holders

Give your candle holders a festive makeover. Spray them with snow spray or wrap them in cinnamon sticks and finish with a pretty ribbon.

A red candle in a candle holder with cinnamon sticks lined around the edge of the holder and a red ribbon holding them in place. Surrounded by foliage, tinsel and hazelnuts.

Wrap candle holders in cinnamon sticks with ribbon

20. Upcycle Old Books

Wrap old books in white paper and add festive messages to the spine before tying a bundle together with festive ribbon to add to the sideboard.

21. Stack Your Books As A Tree

Or stack some books as a Christmas tree with fairy light detail! You could even make them into a book advent calendar.

Books wrapped in green tissue paper and stacked in a Christmas tree shape with fairy lights wound around and an LED star on top.

Stack Books As a Christmas Tree to form a Book Advent Calendar

22. Make Use Of Christmas Cards Received

Keep particularly beautiful Christmas cards to display as wall art in years to come. Hang from ribbon in a Christmas tree shape, frame them or simply stick them to the wall with command strips.

23. Light A Fire

It sounds obvious but anything that says cosy warmth speaks to Christmas. So don’t forget to light that fire and burn those candles.

24. Make Use Of Seasonal Fruit

Add oranges, pomegranates and other seasonal fruits and nuts to baskets, bowls and vases. Oranges can be used fresh or dried with pinecones.

Oranges and pine cones in a bowl with some sprigs of pine.

Add oranges and foliage to bowls

25. Show Off The Sweet Treats

Perfectly on trend for this year, get those sweet treats on display!

Fill old fashioned jars and pretty glasses with festive goodies such as peppermint swirls and gold coins. Line small bowls with candy canes.

Elf perched on a sleigh with small fish bowl behind him filled with candy canes and a little mug next to him filled with chocolate fingers.

Line small bowls and glasses with candy canes.

26. Festive-fy Your House Plants

Give your house plants the festive treatment with a few Christmas ornaments hung from them leaves or branches. You could even add a gonk or mushroom to the pot too.

27. Play To All The Senses

It’s not just about visuals. Add a festive scent with a candle, room scent, or stovetop potpourri and some Christmas music and it won’t matter what’s on display, the festive feels will be in full swing!