My own ideas, for you to steal

Decorating for Christmas growing up was always a big deal. I loved it all, but my favorite was the Christmas lights. This year, my challenge was decorating a small space. We've recently downsized so I got rid of almost all of my decorations. While the boys' room doesn't have room for a Christmas tree (which would be my preference) I still wanted them to have Christmas lights. So instead of looping them haphazardly on the bookshelves, or around the window, I decided to put them in spiral above my son's bed. I normally use only white lights, but the colored lights looked great with the grays, oranges, greens, and blues in the comforter.

All you need to do this project is a string of christmas lights, small Command Decorating Clips, and a measuring tape. First I plugged in the lights to the lamps (I bought these lamps at Walmart and they have an outlet on the base....we use them for night lights, perfect!) then I placed the first clip level with the night stand so it is to the far right of the back of the bed. I then ran the light up toward the ceiling and put another clip about a foot down from the ceiling. As you can see from the photo, the room has knotty pine boards, so I didn't have to worry about the lights being hung plumb--I just followed the lines of the boards. If you are trying this, you may want to use a level to make sure they are straight up and down, or take a measurement from a nearby wall. When placing the clips on the wall, I always put the open side of the clip facing the outside of the spiral so that the tension keeps the lights from falling out of the clip. The next clip to go up was the top, left corner; the same distance from the ceiling as the previous hook. Once the hook was in place, I gently tugged on the lights, and placed them over the hook.

I know Command suggest waiting after placing their product on the wall, but because the lights weigh so little, as soon as the hook was up, I hung the lights. The lower-left corner hook was level with the first hook I put on the right side, but when placing lights on the inside spiral I measured 7 inches in. I continued this all the way to the center. When I got to the center, I still had Christmas lights left over, so I just wrapped them back around again.

This sounds much more complicated than it really is. It only took me about 10 minutes to do the entire wall. Best part is, that the Command strips allow me to take down the lights after the holidays without any damage to the walls. But we like it so much, the lights may stay up well into the new year!