My 25 Best Cottage Christmas DIY Decorating Ideas

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If you love cottagecore or vintage style Christmas decor with a natural, old-fashioned feel, stay tuned! Here are 25 cozy Christmas DIY crafts I made for our home over the years, in true modern rustic style! You do not have to be crafty to make these projects! And most of them can be done in 30 minutes or less, with natural materials or items you already have!

Cozy Rustic DIY Christmas Decor Coming Right Up

When we moved into our new (to us) home in TN, my twin boys were 3 years old, and I needed allllll of the creativity to decorate for Christmas on a budget.

Beside clearance sales mixed with creativity, it also involved a LOT of DIY.

And today, a few years later, DIYs are still some of my favorite ways to decorate.

There are still times when I’m a lazy, and it’s easier to run out to Hobby Lobby, but to me, part of the fun of Christmas decorating is the creating.

I LOVE to find new ways to use what I have, arrange it differently, upcycle and repurpose. So even though a lot of the decor is the same from year to year, I love to figure out new ways to display it.

Easy DIY Christmas Decorations, Farmhouse Style

Over the years, I’ve accumulated a bunch of rustic Christmas DIYs that I’ve made myself – and these still are my favorites.

My home is mostly an eclectic mix of farmhouse – some rustic and vintage, some clean and modern, some boho, some minimalist, some cottagecore. For me, personally, I think it all works together.

If you’ve been around my blog for any amount of time, you know I’m all about EASY and CHEAP and FAST DIY and decor projects. I just don’t have the patience for super-detailed or super-complex projects or anything that takes a long time. 

Today I want to share with easy Christmas decor projects with you. Many have a vintage Christmas or old-fashioned feel. Many use natural materials for an organic vibe. Some are just fun ways to put together common things.

Lots of them are repurposed or free materials you probably have around the house. For any other materials, you can easily find them at local stores

Almost all of these can be done in one sitting, and the majority of them completed in 30 minutes or less, no fancy or complicated instructions or materials needed.

Does that sound like your thing, too? Read on!

25 Vintage DIY Crafts for an Old-Fashioned Christmas

1| NOEL Christmas Porch Sign

This was my very first DIY, even before we moved to Tennessee. Our picket fence had seen better days, so I grabbed this piece, painted wood letters, and glued them on with gorilla glue. The ‘O’ is just a piece of Christmas garland that I wrapped around several times to make a circle. You can get the full tutorial for the sign here!

 

2| Dried Orange Garland

I first saw this idea on a Liz Marie Galvin blogpost.

Once the oranges are dried (you can read how to dry the oranges here), you can use them in a number of ways.

I like to make garland with them using fishing line. Then, I have a few ways I use those strands: mix the orange garland in with green garland on tables, hang it from my mantel, drape it down my windows.

For the loose orange slices, I add to bowls with greens, centerpieces, and even tie them to gifts.

 

And speaking of gifts…

3| Homemade Gift Wrap Decor

Using (faux) Christmas gifts as decor is such a festive idea. In this post, you can see so many different ways to wrap gifts as decor, but I honestly keep it simple. I buy some Kraft type gift wrap, some plain brown and white Kraft paper and decorate them myself.

For this project, I drew some fun trees, snowflakes, and Christmas designs right on the paper with a Sharpie. I added some raffia, greens and orange slices, and the result is beautiful, rustic Christmas decor.

4| Christmas Ornament Centerpiece

This is less of a DIY and more of an arrangement. This can work in a dough bowl, any regular oversized bowl, or even a tray.

I took apart a Christmas decoration I didn’t need, layered the greens, added some sparkly silver and steel-colored ornaments, and threw in some dried orange slices (you can read about how to dry the oranges here). This is a simple but impressive no-fuss centerpiece.

If you want to see more Christmas tablescape ideas, check them out here!

 

Here’s one I did that is similar, the year before.

5| Floating Candle Centerpiece

This is another easy and cheap way to fancy up a table. All you need is a garden bowl from Dollar Tree, pine, orange slices, cranberries, and floating candles! You can also fill jars with the same ingredients for a truly cozy Christmas feel!

I love the minimalist feel of this simple Christmas centerpiece (which you can see more Christmas centerpieces here and a whole post on minimalist Christmas decorating ideas here!)

6| Pine Cone Branch Hanging

This was another early DIY I did when we moved into our house. Full instructions for the pine cone hanging branch are right here. I love the versatility of this one – you can change out the decor and use it all year long!

For Christmas, you can use pine cones or ornaments. For winter, you can add slow flakes, hearts for Valentine’s Day … each season can add new life and fun!

Below you can see it with garland over the branch for something a little extra.

7| Branch Tree with Ornaments

This is another easy DIY from nature! You can get detailed instructions right here, but basically, these are spray-painted sticks in a bucket with rocks and sand. You can hang ornaments, snowflakes, even jingle bells.

This tree is also versatile to decorate for any season! I originally created this one for fall and used acorns. It truly is fun for every season.

 

 

You can also use white ornaments, icicles and snowflakes for Christmas decor, and leave it up all winter long!

 

 

8| Gift Bag Frame Set

 

This was another of my frugal years decorations, but I still use this every year. These are cheap Dollar Tree frames with Christmas gift bags from Walmart.

Once you find a nice coordinating type set that fits with your decor, you have easy and cheap decorations that will fit your style!

 

9| Hanger Frame Christmas Wall Art

This is another way you can hang a printable, gift bag – or as you see here, a page from a calendar! This frame is made with paint sticks, and it’s so, so simple to make!

I have hanger frames all over my house, and you can even make them to you can swap out the prints. Full directions for 3 different types of hanger frames are here!

Below is a poster size hanger frame you can also use for Christmas decor (or any time of the year!)

Printable are wonderful for these frames. You can find many of them for free on Pinterest, and I also sell them inexpensively in my Etsy shop! All 3 prints in the picture above are in the shop!

10| Christmas Wreaths

DIY Christmas wreaths are nothing new. There are so many ideas you can find for how to make wreath. Again, I’m all about EASY. So here are a few SIMPLE wreaths I put together for Christmas:

Evergreen Wreath with Dried Oranges

This one is made with all live materials on a wire wreath form! Directions here!

Bead Wreath

Just grab some of your favorite stems and embellishments and wire to a beaded wreath form. I got all the materials for this one from Hobby Lobby.

Clearance Wreath with Bells

This was a wreath I got on clearance at Walmart after Christmas one year. I added some lamb’s ear stems with berries. The bells are from Hobby Lobby. I hung the bells on the wreath hanger, hung the wreath on top, and pulled the bells through.

Easiest wreath ever.

Vintage Bell and Bow Wreath

This is a new wreath I just created, where I repurposed an older wreath I had! It’s another one that I used with a set of hanging bells. This is a DIY I’ve wanted to create for a long time, and I love the vintage feel on this one!

Grapevine Wreath with Berries

Dollar Tree wreath form + berry garland = there you go.

 

11| Multiple Wreath Wall Decor

I saw this idea from Cotton Stem a few years ago, and fell in love. These wreath forms are a set from Walmart, with some eucalyptus greens attached with floral wire.

You can hang this on a wall, or it’s also another fun idea for a vintage window (I brought mine down from NY when we moved!).

Again, this is another one that you can keep up all year and swap out the decor. I clip on pumpkins in the fall, hang bells for Christmas… any seasonal embellishment works wonderfully.

Above is another version of the same idea!

We moved furniture around to accommodate our Christmas tree, and suddenly I had a blank wall to fill! These wreath forms are from Dollar Tree, and the greens were from garlands that I purchased from Joann’s (that I didn’t like as garland!).

These greens are attached with floral wire and secured with a glue gun. And yes, that’s just a branch from the yard. But I really fell in love with this effect.

 

12| Stamped Book Stacks

Stamped book stacks have been around for a while, but they really do give you a charming, old-fashioned decor piece.

You can chalkpaint over the covers or rip them off. You can use letter stamps, cut vinyl, stickers – or if you’re super-talented, you can go free-hand!

I really love this as a DIY project because you can customize the saying and make it more original.

The trick is to figure out how to break up your saying (how many words can fit on a line). Pro-tip: I found it easier to stamp backwards, from right to left, to make sure I didn’t run out of room and that all the letters fit!

13| Vintage Votive Candle Jar

This is another piece of decor you can make with pine you cut from your yard. Grab any kind of old food jar, fill it with pine, dried oranges, cinnamon sticks. Place a glass votive holder in the top and add a tea light or votive.

Then, just glue burlap ribbon around it, add jute string around the top, and glue on a pine sprig or other Christmas embellishment. You can also tie on cinnamon sticks and dried oranges for an extra nostalgic feel! 

14| Cinnamon Stick Candle

This is another easy DIY for a candle. Grab a chunky pillar candle.

Measure a piece of burlap ribbon to fit around it, with a little extra, and glue gun cinnamon sticks to the ribbon. Glue it to the candle once it’s done, then add some raffia and greens around it for a little rustic bling.

This is another favorite of mine!

15| Applesauce Cinnamon Ornaments

Oh man, do I love this one! When I opened the box of ornaments this year, I could still smell them!

This is a simple recipe – 1 part applesauce to 1 part cinnamon (I start with 1 cup of each). If you need it less watery, add flour, not cinnamon, because cinnamon is expensive, y’all! It also gives it a powdery look, which is a wonderful vintage feel.

Roll dough to 1/4″ thick on parchment paper, use your Christmas cookie cutters to make shapes, and bake for 20- 30 minutes at 200 degrees. Or, you can just set them out to dry for 4 or 5 day.

I decorated these with a white puffy paint pen. Don’t forget to make a hole with a straw if your plan is to string them up.

There are endless possibilities for this one – as ornaments, garland, ceiling hangings, in mugs… truly rustic charm.

 

16| Ornament Ceiling Hanging

This is one I tried for the first time this year, and I love the effect.

Grab a favorite set of ornaments – or an eclectic mix. Tie on fishing line to the ornament hanger, wrap the other end around a thumb tack, dab with your glue gun to keep it in place, then pin to the ceiling!

The only trick to this is to make sure the varying lengths are to your liking.

I’m a little uptight so I was up and down the ladder measuring the length for each one. But if you’re less picky, you can certainly wing it and not lose anything on the effect.

This also looks beautiful hanging from a mantel or shelf as well.

 

17| Paint Pen Ornaments

This was an idea I saw floating around Instagram last year. Basically, purchase some frosty white ornaments and some paint pens or Sharpies.

I just did a few zig-zag free-hand Christmas trees and branches. These really are super-easy, even if you aren’t an artist. Last year, I hung them from a curtain rod. This year, I put them in a Christmas bucket!

You can use these for some of the other ornament projects as well! 

And if you like to make ornaments, here are 40+ DIY Christmas ornaments to try!

And if you didn’t want to make your own ornaments, you can easily buy some and put them in a bucket or basket as well.

I also use ornaments in lanterns!

18| Christmas Window Treatment

 

This is a DIY I originally saw years ago right here. If you don’t have hooks above your window, you can use Command strip hooks as well (just check the weight limit).

I’ve done this with icicle wreaths, eucalyptus, pine branches, jars with greens, ribbons, dried orange garland. This year, I painted my jars black because the glass jar got lost against the glass window.

But once you have hooks in place, you can really play with your creativity!

19| Paper Bag Snowflakes

This is a new one for me this year, even though I saw it on Instagram and bought the materials for it last year (me in a nutshell).

But honestly, it took about 15 minutes to make, and I’m just loving it! There are video reels all over Instagram and Facebook right now showing this easy and cheap DIY! (I read through this quick tutorial on Cuckoo 4 Design). 

It’s a matter of gluing paper bags together (I used 9 for each snowflake), cutting out a simple pattern to make snowflakes or stars, and then opening up and gluing the ends together. So vintage – I really love the Scandinavian look for this project.

The kids can even help with this one.

20| Christmas Placemat Pillows

This is a craft I do for just about every season. Pillows can be expensive, but not if you use placemats!

All you need to do is take a seamripper to open a small spot in the top, stuff it with pillow stuffing, and then use your glue gun to glue it back up.

If the placemat is just one layer, you can glue two of them together, leaving a small opening and follow the same steps. (If you want more detailed instructions for placemat pillows, you can take a look here!) These are a great accessory for a couch, chair, porch rocker – even in a blanket basket.

(Sorry about the wrinkles on the pillows in these pictures. Little boys in the house, y’all.)

 

I’ve also upcycled pillows I no longer ‘love’ along with a blanket that has seen better days by covering the front (or the whole thing, depending on your liking) with a blanket and sewing some jute string around the edges.

Any cozy material – even a sweater or a special Christmas blanket works fine. (This also is a wonderful way to keep a child’s blanket that’s falling apart as a keepsake!).

I also like to upcycle sweaters for DIY Christmas ornaments, too!

 

21| DIY Eclectic Christmas Potpourri

This is another one of those no-brainer throw-together ideas.

If you have vases or jars or buckets or bowls that need a little something, you can mix up pine cones, jingle bells, mini ornaments, dried oranges, faux berries, etc. for your own eclectic filler potpourri.

I usually just combine whatever I have on-hand at the end of decorating and put it all together.

 

 

Or, if you have a set of jars, you can separate them out for a more monochromatic look in each jar! (These jars were also Dollar Tree DIYs that you can check out here!)

23| Wrapping Paper Filled Basket

This is another idea I saw on Instagram a few years ago, and I just fell in love with it!

Grab some rolls of your favorite vintage or farmhouse style wrapping paper, put them in a tall woven basket, and you’ve got not only gorgeous Christmas decor but a place to store that pesky wrapping paper!

24| Minimalist Tree with Vintage Candles and Ribbon

A tree doesn’t to be complicated. In fact, less is usually more charming!

Here’s a Christmas tree decorated simply and elegantly with white lights, clip-on battery operated candles, and neutral colored ribbon. I also added in simple gold beads from Dollar Tree!

This idea also works especially well with small trees in basket, placed in different locations around the house (if you can’t give up your full size tree to minimalism! lol).

25| Wrapping Paper as a Table Runner

Buying Christmas-specific decor can add up really fast! I’m always a fan of using inexpensive items in creative ways. 

For my Christmas table, I used a roll of striped farmhouse wrapping paper as my table runner, and I love how it turned out!

It makes clean up easy, and you won’t care if it gets stained! 

26| DIY Vintage Bells and Bow Christmas Swag

This is another super-easy DIY Christmas decoration with a cottagey, vintage feel. It takes literally minutes to create with just a few materials, but it really makes a statement whether you hang it on the front door, on the porch, or somewhere inside the home.

Easy, Cheap, Fast Christmas DIY Decor is How I Roll

I hope I gave you some quick ideas you can throw together at the last minute! There’s so much going on, but sometimes, you just need a little something as a far as decor goes. I hope this will help you fill those gaps!

If you want even more rustic Christmas DIY ideas, I’ve rounded up 35 ideas that you can add into your DIY queue!

And if you happen to like watching video tutorials, here are 10 Easy Farmhouse Christmas DIYs from Liz Fenwick DIY – she’s got great ideas!

 

All the Christmas Inspiration

If you’re looking inspiration for all the Christmas things, I put together this Ultimate Christmas Guide – all kinds of Christmas posts in one place: decor ideas, DIYs, crafts, gift guides, Christmas desserts and cookies, kid activities… it’s all there! 

I hope you have the happiest of holidays this year. I’m praying the joy and hope of Jesus’ birth gives you all the lift your spirit may need!

If you make any of these designs, I’d love to see them! Please tag me on Instagram @100affections or leave a comment on Pinterest!

Thoughts? I’d love to hear them! Leave a comment below!