Updating A Thrift Store Christmas Swag

I joined this month’s Great Create Challenge where the theme is Christmas Re-Imagination to remake something old into a new Christmas item.  I chose to remake an old dated greenery swag I found at a thrift store in to something pretty for Christmas.

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On a recent trip to one of our local thrift stores, I was looking for old dated Christmas decorations or similar items to give a little love and updating for this challenge.

If you have visited thrift stores during this time of the year you will see some interesting, and yes sometimes ugly, Christmas decorations from the past. 

It can be entertaining but also frustrating when you are looking for something that inspire you to do a makeover.

Another thing for me was that I also didn’t want to spend a lot of money on something I was going to remake anyway.

After dismissing several old villages and lots of angel tree toppers, I spied this dated Christmas swag at the top of a shelf.  You know the kind with the red velvet bows that look like they came out of the 1980s or 1990s.

 

 

The swag itself was actually in really good shape so I don’t know why the previous owner just didn’t update it instead of donating it but maybe they were just tired of it. Who knows.  But their donated “trash” is now my “treasure”. 

At only $4.99 it was a great price, but then they priced it at half off and it was a definitely a win! So for only $2.50 I was able to make something new for my home and for this month’s Christmas Re-Imagination Challenge.

 

This old swag is about 4 feet long and in pretty good shape especially once I started to fluff out the branches and remove the velvet bow.

The first thing I added to it was a much bigger bow. 

 

 

This one was once used on top of my rustic Christmas tree from a blog hop three years ago.  I made this big double bow with gold accents and rustic deer to go with a tree that also had woodland creatures, mason jars, and snowball and pine cone garland.

Taking some treated pine cones from my stash collected from my own yard in previous years, I wired them to the swag around the bow.

I have 17 foot ceilings in my kitchen and the area over the kitchen cabinets always look so plain and empty.  I had my husband place the swag over the kitchen sink and just left it there for a few weeks, not sure if it needed more things added to it or if it was pretty enough just on it’s own.

 

Swag Makevover – Phase II

After a few weeks of looking at the swag every day, I decided that it needed a little bit more glitz after all. 

I have several strings of fairy lights left over from my daughter’s wedding and considered adding those to the swag but who really wants to climb a ladder every time to turn those on. 

Of course I nixed that idea.

 

I pulled out some of my Christmas decorations again and found at the bottom of the ornament bin these small and deep brown ornaments, some shiny and some with glitter, that were the perfect match to the brown on the ribbon.

 

 

So I climbed up the ladder one more time and added these small ornaments to the swag for an extra touch of sparkle and Christmas style.

 

 

I guess you could also call this a rustic Winter swag if it doesn’t look enough like Christmas to you.

This swag is very different from what I usually make or even the colors I decorate with but I really like how it turned out in the end. 

 

There are some talented bloggers participating in this challenge so be sure to visit their projects as well for some great inspiration.

 

 

Hugs,

Luke 2:11 Today in the city of David a Savior was born for you, who is the Messiah, the Lord.