No Shop January Update: Repurposing Decor

All the holiday decor is gone along with this amazing garland I made, and the house felt really empty after we packed it all up! My DIY hands were twitchy as well.

Thanks to Facebook Marketplace, Mel finally acquired the one tool he was eyeing: a table saw. I saw it as an opportunity to make a console/sofa table for our living room, particularly to house my mother's vintage Christmas village.

Mel did make the console table and it fit perfectly under the gallery wall that is between the living and the dining room - the problem was what to do after it once all the decorations were gone. The table was naked!


I needed to do something to put the house back together besides vacuuming and organizing the holiday decor boxes. So I decided to take one of the ginger jars (which is really a pitcher) and make a floral arrangement for it.

Since I committed to a No Shop January challenge on Instagram, it meant that I really shouldn't go over to Michaels and see what was available.

#noshopjanuary is a challenge in which people commit to no frivolous shopping, and to try and shop more intentionally and sustainably.

I am also using it as a way to prevent myself from getting sucked into the Instagram clickbait and that rush of getting something on sale. This is part of my theme for 2020 which is Commitment - I want to commit to saving better and using my money more wisely.

To that end, I took a look at the faux floral I already had and then realized something so simple that I pretty much went, "Duh, thats the point!"

Cut it up. Cut the stems off and use them in different configurations. That's why floral wire exists, and I had plenty of that already.

I really did not have much of a method to it - I took the two bouquets that I had from the Christmas decor along with the ranunculus stems that I used for the ginger jar floral arrangements and back at Thanksgiving, and snipped off the blue bits, roses, eucalyptus and the feathers to go with the ranunculus.

Because I am Type A, I made two small mini bundles: each had four ranunculus stems, a white rose, eucaluptus, thislte and a feather. Wrapped with floral wire after I was happy with the mini bundles. 

Then I took the two mini bundles to make a larger bouquet. 

Placed the bouquet in the pitcher and was all done! Once I came to the "cut it up" realization, this little project took me less than 15 minutes. The great thing is is that I can repurpose these again if I want to for other future decor projects. 

Is anyone else joining in on No Shop January? Share your tips and tricks below!