How I Decorated for New Years for $5

I absolutely love to decorate for every holiday there is and New Years is not an exception to that.  But since I only have New Years decorations up for about a week making sure I don’t spend a lot of money on these decorations is really important to me.  Also I only decorate my mantel.

This year I found this super cute FREE New Year Banner printable from Leslie at Play Dates to Parties.  I downloaded it and printed it on cardstock with I already had on hand. After I cut it out I used my hole punch to punch the holes before stringing it up on some black ribbon I also had on hand.  My youngest two children helped me with holding the ribbon ends while I figured out exactly where I wanted them.  I attempted to hold the ribbon up with tape (not sure why I did that) but the tape wouldn’t hold on my brick mantel, so I used hot glue which will peel right off after New Years is over.

Next I “shopped” my house for black, gold and silver decor that I could use for this set up.  I knew I had the black candles stashed away in my China cabinet.  I pulled them out and decided to cut out two of the wine bottle labels from Leslie’s printable and tape them onto the glass candle vases.

I had this black wooden piece that my husband and I made years ago that I had never thought about using on my mantel till I saw my sister-in-law use something similar on her mantel this holiday season so I decided it was prefect for the mantel.  However, I had no clue what I wanted to put in it and I really wanted some way to elevate one of the candles so I decided to turn the wooden piece onto its side and set the candles on top of it.

After doing that I decided pictures would be prefect for setting inside the wooden piece and I went searching through my past years of New Years Eve pictures.  I found this group picture and the individual pictures of my youngest two pictures.  Finally I found this firework photo (I think its actually from 4th of July).  I gathered picture frames I already had on hand.  One thing I seem to collect is picture frames and this is a time they always come in handy.  I was able to set the picture frames up and then decide what picture I wanted in each frame.  It really helped me visualize my set up.  Since this set up is for only a few days I decided I would print the pictures on cardstock instead of ordering prints from CVS.

I had taken the Christmas lights down from the mantel before I started this decorating and I through they would look great with my New Years decorations.  I may actually keep a string or two of Christmas lights out when I put away my Christmas decor this year just so I can use them through out the year for stuff like this.  I decided to drape them from one end of the mantel to the other and let the extra hang off each side.  I just love how they light up my mantel and frame it in.

While I was “shopping” my house I found the “&” in some of my photography props.  I decided to use it in the center of the mantel just because its cute and the color goes along great with New Years decorations.

Finally I used my tall glass vase, sat it on one end of the mantel and filled it with New Years party gear which I picked up at Target for $5.  I just love how my mantel looks and that I didn’t spend much to decorate for New Years!!