Is decorating your Christmas tree with commercial objects becoming a bore and a chore? Tired of the same flashy, mass produced, glittery ornaments that your neighbors, family and friends have on display year after year?

Maybe it's too late for THIS YEAR (maybe not, if you live in a mild climate) to start 'crafting' around, but here are some ideas that will help you BUST OUT of the carbon-copy Christmas 'look.'

Natural always WORKS!

Collect some outdoor 'nature' objects to use for decorations. In our material, commercial world, not only will 'natural' work for you and look great, but it will also seem 'UNIQUE' these days when compared to bright red Santa figurines, glitzy, sparkly, metallic balls, and shiny tinsel.

Nature is filled with beauty - bring some of it into your home at Christmas time.

If you have your own garden, use some items from this (before winter's blanket covers these goodies up!). Use your imagination - if it's a flower garden you tend to, make sure to press some flowers and think ahead for next Christmas. If you have a vegetable garden, press some of the leaves from plants that you like - even if these are not 'traditional' wintery-looking or 'Christmas-sy-looking.' If you like them, you'll find a way to make them look great once Christmas season hits.

If you don't own a garden of any sort, that's okay, too. Take a walk to the park, collect some leaves, pine cones, branches, etc. A great many people reading this will actually live in mild climate areas and probably have wonderful foilage, fruits and plants available year-round...just because it's not a PINE tree item, a Poinsettia, Mistletoe or the like, don't discard the idea of using natural items around you for decorations!

If properly and creatively arranged, almost ANYTHING you select will be exactly the right choice for your Christmas season.

The best part - using natural items is almost always FREE!

You can enrich the look of your items by adding colourful fruits and vegetables.

Well-pressed leaves can be sealed and made into place-mats for the dinner table - or you can create the same sealed place-mat for setting on or in large serving bowls for things you'll offer chilled or room temperature. A natural place-mat lining in your fruitbowl, enhanced with the colourful mix of red and green apples, orange and yellow oranges and grapefruits, green pears, and yellow bananas will be unique, attractive and will even make your 'all the time' and 'all season' staple fruits look good!

This pressed leaf/flower idea will result in place-mats that you can also use for other occassions if the idea strikes at other times of the year, too.

If you are lucky (or resourceful) enough to be able to find little branches right at Christmas time to use in 'arrangements,' don't forget to slice the part, just slightly, that will go in the water vase. You'll need to do this to absorption so your ornament stays moist, internally, and will last longer.

Just let your creative self go to work, and with little or no money at all, you'll probably come up with ornaments that will make the holidays special. Remember, if you are making these homemade, natural items, they will, indeed, be unique! They will be 'never seen before' and may never be seen again because YOU MADE THEM YOURSELF.

DarlKay52, a fellow hubbivite who left a message in 'comments' on this hub runs an eBay store from Abilene, KS - USA. I followed the link to find some great (and appropriate-for-Xmas) items at Darl's Prarie Creations eBay outlet.

If you're not the 'crafty' type but love the look of home-built creations, I think you'll enjoy browsing Darl's eBay store!

I found the items to be very attractive with excellent pricing.

Check out Darl's "About Me Page" to get to know Darl.

Check out Darl's Prarie Creations eBay storefront to see if the items there are of interest to you.

An added eBay module to the right shows a few items from Darl's Prairie Creations.

Also, check out Darl's decidedly  seasonal and crafty  hubs:

Fun With Outdoor Christmas Inflatables, and

Collecting Quilt Ball Ornaments

DarlKay - Thanks for commenting!

Make your home smell nice with the aroma of potpourri.

Some of these ingredients may already be in your kitchen and you may be able to find others outdoors. If not, don't worry - all of these items are easily found in most grocery stores or an herbal shoppe - at very reasonable prices, even in the latter location.

Here's what you'll need:

* 1/2 cup miniature pine cones

* 1/2 cup rose hips (these are excellent for tea, too)

* 1/2 cup snipped balsam needles

* 1/2 cup bayberry leaves

* 2 teaspoons of orrisroot (herbal shoppe might be the place for gaining this)

One last ingredient...

* 2 drops PINE fragrance oil

** A tip - DO NOT overdo with the fragrant oil - or your place will likely end up smelling like 'cleaner' fumes haha! More is not better here, okay? You don't want your place to smell like you dumped the pine sol bucket or something!

Now, what you want to do with these ingredients is mix the pine cones, rosehips, bayberry leaves, and balsam needles in a reasonably large bowl or pot. Put the orrisroot with fixative (a note about fixative below), then gently mix and stir to blend ingredients.

(fixative: holds the aroma in and preserves fragrance in potpourri products... I FOREGO the orrisroot/fixative often and just place ingredients in a 'utility' pot on my stove burner, re-heating the pot a few times throughout the day or when I am going to relax or do meditation)

You DO NOT have to 'burn' or 'simmer' this mixture if you are concerned about flame-burner potpourri set-ups, have small children around, or just plain do not have a potpourri burner at all.

If you choose not to 'burn' this mixture, simply divide up into some small glass jars (make some decorative lids with small holes to let the scent escape if you have small children), place in some small crystal dishes around your home. Put a jar on your work desk to enjoy the refreshing, 'comfort' scent when you're ready to stretch and take a break between work tasks.

Obviously, you can use a specially made potpourri burner or simmer plate with this recipe, too. There are electrical burners that are quite safe and some even have timers for shutting off to make sure you don't overburn your mixture.

If you use an open flame burner, please use caution and use this item MINDFULLY so that you do not scorch the mixture or simply forget you are using a burner...this mixture CAN catch fire if burned down - and remember, it has OIL in it, so...

Be MINDFUL - Be Careful