As Christmas approaches, the mood is uplifted by the idea of decorating the house and thus starts a silent competition in the neighborhood to have the best decorated house. Though a lot of effort is spent in decorating the interior of the house, the exterior of the house should not be neglected as all passing neighbours may not necessarily enter your living room. In order to create an impression and win accolades and appreciation from neighbours, it is important that enough attention is given to details of outdoor decorations.
Outdoor decorations depend a lot on the kind of landscaping of the house. The first and the foremost thing to do before starting outdoor decoration is to have a detailed plan of what needs to be achieved. There are many alternatives for outdoor decoration. However, there are two broad ways to go about decorating outdoors. One is to have a random decoration using the items that you already have or can acquire by spending the minimum for example you can place lighting, wreaths and teddy etc. at appropriate places outside the house to highlight different parts of the house. This random placement of items may click for some houses that have extraordinary landscaping and where there is very little scope of adding any major value to the outdoors. The decorative items may be used just to highlight the celebrations or festivity mood. The second option is to have a theme based decoration. You can choose from a variety of themes that are commonly used for outdoor decoration or can invent an entirely new theme. Having theme based decorations is preferred to random decorations as there are a plethora of options available and it is easier to manage theme based decorations. These days, a number of households have outdoor Christmas trees.
Some innovative themes for outdoor Christmas decorations are:
- Santa theme: With Christmas tree outside, Cotton can be used to give snow effect, provided there has been no snow fall outside. The white color of cotton coupled with the green of the Christmas tree gives a winter feel to the Christmas. The tree can then be decorated using bulbs and teddy bears and other ornaments depending on the overall Christmas trees. A large human effigy can be used as a Santa Clause and can be placed at a place visible from outside. If possible sleigh can also be used to complete the Santa theme. In absence of effigy, a poster can be used. To add to the overall decor, lighting can be used to highlight landscaping of the house.
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Lighting can be done on trees and shrubs. Lighting up: The luminaries are popularly used to light up the driveway, walkways and entire outdoor. Multiple color lights can be used to give special effect to the outdoor decoration. Various lighting angles can also be explored to have special illuminating effect on decorations.
- Pool effect: In case there is a pool in the house, floating wood can be used to create a base for Christmas tree and a floating Christmas tree can be used as the epicentre of decoration. Lights directed to this floating Christmas tree will give special effects to this extravaganza.
- Snow theme: For places where it snows, snow is a bonanza for outdoor Christmas decorations. A number of snowmen can be created and lighting can be used to highlight the snowmen. Snow gives a uniform color to the outside landscape and therefore is easy to decorate with contrasting colors. Colors like heart red and evergreen uplifts the mood and can be effectively used for outdoor decorating.
- Wall decoration: Wall decoration is an important aspect of outdoor decoration. Garlands and hanging wreaths are commonly used for decorating doors. However, garlands and hanging wreaths can be effectively used to decorate the walls. The wall should be appropriately lighted to highlight the decoration on the wall during the night. The terrace border can be lighted by series of lighting. The other outdoor landscape can remain well light without any particular decoration.
Other ideas for themes could include snowflakes, angels, bells, candy canes and reindeers etc. One can use multiple items from above themes to come up with something innovative and decorate the outdoors. Lighting plays a very important role in overall outdoor decoration and it is therefore important to pay proper attention to lighting. However, one should be careful while installing lightings and proper precautions should be taken to avoid any mishaps like electrical short circuits etc.
