When it comes to Christmas decorations, most people use the same ornaments year after year. Christmas ornaments have great sentimental value attached to them, which makes throwing them away (no matter how beat up they may be) an impossibility.

Whether they’re old family heirlooms or some cute little clay angel that your child made, these decorations are irreplaceable and certainly have a place in your home and in your heart. This Christmas, however, why not deck the halls with some new, homemade holiday decorations? Homemade Christmas decorations are a great way to reinvigorate your home just in time for the holidays, lifting your spirits in the process. Here are some simple holiday craft ideas to get you started.

1.) Pine Cone Ornaments: When decorating your Christmas tree this season, give your old heirloom ornaments some much needed company by making some new ones! Making ornaments out of pine cones is a timeless idea and oh so easy to make. Simply dip your pine cones in a non-toxic white, silver or gold paint and tie on a little ribbon. Dip half of a pine cone into some white paint and you have a snow-kissed pine cone! Drizzle your pine cones with some glue and sprinkle them with gold or silver glitter. These new ornaments will breathe new life into your Christmas tree.

2.) Tree Branch Centerpieces: The best kinds of holiday decorations are those with a personal touch! Gather some fallen small-size tree branches from your backyard and paint them silver or white. Now put them in a big white bowl, sprinkle them with glitter, fake snow, pine cones, mistletoe - whatever you want! Instant table centerpiece! Use evergreen tree branches for an extra fragrant centerpiece!

3.) Christmas Card Collage: Don’t you just love Christmas cards? What do you do with them after you’ve read them? They look great displayed on your mantle or kitchen counters, but why not try something different this season? Making a Christmas card collage is easy and a fun family project. Once everyone is done reading them, glue them on a piece of poster board - making sure that the decorative front or inside of the card is visible. Either glue them close together or leave some white space in between cards and add some of your own decorative accents. Buy a roll of clear contact paper and stick your Christmas cards to the inside (sticky side). You can either frame your collage or prop it up somewhere in your home.

4.) Homemade Holiday Potpourri : Even if you haven’t started all of your holiday baking quite yet, you can at least get the house smelling fresh and Christmassy. Tie a few cinnamon sticks together into a little bundle, using a red, green or gold ribbon. Make a few bundles and put them in clear glass jars, in bowls or on plates and place them throughout your home. Cinnamon sticks will add a nice, fresh, Christmas scent to your home. Refresh the scent of your cinnamon sticks by sprinkling on some cinnamon-scented oil.

5.) Terra Cotta Candy Dishes : Who doesn’t love Christmas sweets! With guests coming over, it’s always a good idea to have some strategically-placed candy dishes throughout your home. Get creative this holiday by buying some cheap little terra cotta planters and decorating them with paint, ribbon, glitter and whatever else you have around. Once the paint has dried, fill them with candy canes, Sno-Caps, red jellybeans, and various other hard candies. Not only will the colorful Christmas candy add some flavor to your room, but the painted pots will also be a nice touch.

Decorating your home for the holidays should be fun for the entire family, so get everyone together and have a blast! With all of the fun and easy holiday crafts out there, there’s no reason to get rid of all of your favorite ornaments - just make some new ones and create some new holiday memories in the process.

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Decorating the outside of your home for the holidays can turn into an expensive venture if you’re not careful. But it doesn’t have to be. A popular and simple way to bring a warm glow to the outside of your home during the holidays is to decorate using luminarias along the pathways, sidewalks and driveway of your home.

A luminaria is a votive candle set inside a small decorative paper bag weighted with sand. The bags are usually colored and often perforated with designs through which the candle inside shows as bright pinpricks of light. The custom of luminarias comes from Mexico and was practiced in New Mexico for many years before spreading throughout the United States. It derives from a similar holiday custom of the Pueblo peoples in New Mexico. On Christmas Eve they build a bonfire, called a luminaria, outside each house.

Take a look around your home and decide where you want your luminarias to be located. Measure the length of that pathway or sidewalk, and then double it as you’ll want both sides of the path to be lit. Calculate how many luminaria bags you’ll need. Plan on placing them approximately nine inches to two feet apart; the closer together you place them, the more bags and votive candles you’ll need and the more light they’ll produce.

You can purchase red and green lunch-sized bags if you’d like, or you can use brown lunch bags. The regular brown lunch bags are a bit more transparent and will allow a bit more light to shine through.

If you’re feeling creative, you can stencil a design on the side of each of them that faces the pathway, and cut them out. Angels and stars are popular and actually quite simple to design. . Stencils are available at crafts stores or in the school and office supply aisle of discount stores. You might also find something in your home that you can trace and make a pattern from.

Purchase enough sand to put about two cups per bag. You might want to consider purchasing candle votives in short glass candle holders so the flame is contained. It’s important to keep safety your top priority when using luminarias to decorate with. Make sure you set the candle down deep enough in the sand that it is secure. They work best in dryer climates, which makes it imperative that you keep a close eye on them and make sure they don’t tip over and are kept away from debris that can easily catch fire. Don’t use them on breezy nights, and if the snow or rain starts to fall, try to get them inside as soon as possible so they aren’t ruined.

Luminarias add a nice, soft glow to the outdoor area of your home and give it warmth. They’re a wonderful touch for a Christmas open house or party, and are inexpensive and easy to make. If you choose to use the colored bags and cut stencils into the sides, they also light up the indoor areas of your home nicely. Just make sure they’re placed in areas where small, curious hands or animals can’t accidentally knock them over. You can purchase scented votive candles such as cinnamon or sugar cookie, which would add another dimension to your holiday decorating scheme.

The Christmas season can quickly zap a budget when you’re shopping for gifts, food, wrapping paper, and chauffeuring your kids to their Christmas pageants and parties. One place that you can really save some money and let your personality and creativity shine is when trimming your tree. Why not make your own decorations? It can be a fun activity for the whole family to get involved in, and it can be done very affordably.

For instance, you can decorate colored glass balls you already have by using adhesive spray and glitter, or get your glue gun out and glue on some special sequins or jewels you found at the crafts store. Yarn, ribbon, raffia, stickers and even old buttons can be used as well. If you have old bits of lace, velvet or other favorite fabric, try trimming them into a special shape, such as a star or a heart, and affix them to the glass ornament.

We all receive beautiful greeting cards in the mail each Christmas. Why not use some of those favorite ones from the year before and decorate this season’s tree? You can use the entire card if you like, or you can simply clip out the pictures or scenes on the front that are your favorite and use them to make an ornament. You could also use these to decoupage a glass ornament.

Small children’s toys work great as ornaments as well. Small cars, dolls, farm animals, blocks, beads, and even puzzle pieces can be creatively worked into a theme for your tree. Look around your house and see what old toys you can find and incorporate them into your scheme. You could even work in some larger sized toys to decorate around the base of your tree.

You could even bake ornaments for your tree. If you’re a baker at heart and your family and friends love your treats, a cookie tree would be loved by all. Gingerbread boys and girls would be lovely, but you can place a small hole in the top of any cookie you bake and hang from the tree using a pretty ribbon. Embellish your cookies with some pretty colored sugar or icing, or simply make up some dough that you can bake and then paint and decorate later.

Children young and old can get involved in the ornament making fun. Get out those crayons, paints, colored construction paper, and glue and put them to work! You could incorporate your favorite Christmas wrap and ribbon as well. Have children date each ornament they make, so you’ll all be able to enjoy it for years after. You might have so much fun doing this that you might want to have an annual Christmas tree ornament making day each holiday season before it’s time to decorate your tree.

And don’t be afraid to use things that are just lying around your house that you’d probably otherwise toss or leave in the bottom of the junk drawer. Old earrings and jewelry, feathers, felt, colorful pencil erasers, canceled stamps, and fish aquarium marbles and rocks can all find new life as part of your decorated or homemade ornaments.

You’re only limited by your own creativity, so toss around some ideas with your family members and get to work!