Eco-Friendly Christmas on a Budget That Actually Doesn’t Suck

Eco-Friendly Christmas on a BudgetDoesn’t Christmas in the recession seem more depressing than fun?

More often than not Christmas shopping and gifts budget is almost impossible to put under control.

So here’s a major treat for your heart: Christmas decorations, gifts and hacks that won’t cost you a penny. And what is more, they all actually look cool!

The tips listed there have three reasons to appeal to you: these things are (1) free, (2) eco-friendly and (3) totally re-usable. So let’s celebrate a green Christmas on a budget this year:

1. Christmas Tree

Glass Bottle Christmas Tree: Do you like drinking bier? Do you prefer glass bottles? Do you know that the fun never stops even when the bottle is empty? Here’s a great idea for you to recycle those green glass bottles into a glamorous tree:

Glass Bottle Christmas Tree

Hard Drives Christmas Tree: This one should appeal to real computer geeks. “In total there are around 70 old SCSI hard drives, between 9gb and 18gb in size each”:

Hard drives Christmas Tree

Plastic Bottles Christmas Tree: This hanging Christmas Tree is made of 300 recycled water bottles. The installation looks beautiful casting and reflecting beams of light and thus creating an eye-catching display:

Hard drives Christmas Tree

Also be sure to check this post for numerous ideas of less impressive but still 100% eco-friendly Christmas Trees.

Recycled Christmas Decor

This cute snowman made of plastic cups would look great in your house and I am sure your kids will enjoy creating it:

snowman made of plastic cups

Plastic Bottle Snow Flakes: The author of this artistic design offers to use it as a room divider or a curtain. I think these look like snow flakes and they will definitely contribute to your home Christmas spirit:

Plastic Bottle Snow Flakes

Christmas Wreaths

Stay-at-home moms should appreciate this Christmas wreath. It is made of white buttons and looks really nice:

Christmas Wreath made of buttons

This wreath consists of an old dead power source, an old mouse, an extra power cable, two CDs, and an extra fan cable (by the way, here’s another geeky wreath (and one more) for you if you like this one)…

Geeky Christmas Wreath

Christmas Gifts

This “ship in a bottle” motif is a whimsical way to wish your beloved ones happy Christmas. I am sure the one who receives a message like this will never forget it. Wouldn’t you like to make this Christmas special?

ship in a bottle message

This nice candle holder gift made from recycled CDs will take you no more than 10 minutes to create. Just take a couple of old CDs, microwave them for about 5 seconds and add cute candles:

CD candle holder

Snow in a jar: all you need is to take a glass jar, attach pieces of a small plastic landscape (available at toy and novelty stores) and fill the jar with water and a sprinkle of glitter. Your kids will be impressed and inspired (oh btw, and here’s a similar concept you may be interested in):

Snow in a jar

Christmas Lights

Ping Pong LED lights: Has it ever occurred to you that you can turn Ping Pong balls into multi-color fairy lights? Follow these instructables and you will create one!

Ping Pong LED lights

ThisCandelabra” may be too much for your living room but it can be turned into an unforgivable Christmas decoration:

Candelabra

This glowing jar can be used all over the year but on Christmas it can make a killer holiday decoration (oh, and it can be a nice Christmas gift as well). Inside the Sun Jar is a highly efficient solar cell, a rechargeable battery and three low energy LED lamps.

Sun jar

To make these cool wine bottle lights you will need empty wine bottles, a string of Christmas lights, and a drill.

wine bottle lights

50 plastic cups and 100 multi-color mini-lights are needed to create one sparkle ball. But the result is well worth it: the color and lights effects are impressive:

Plustic cups sparkle ball

Plastic cups sparkle ball