Decorating Your Dorm for Christmas 2009

Dorm rooms in general are tiny and dreary with hard tiled floors, cinder-block walls, and cramped spacing. Don't let the downfalls of your college dorm get you down this holiday season. With a little work and creativity, you'll have your dorm ready for Christmas in no time.

1. The door to your dorm room is the first thing visitors see, so let it also be the beginning of your Christmas cheer. Wrap the outside of your door in wrapping paper. Rolls of wrapping paper can be bought extra cheap from either a local Walmart or Target. Additionally, dollar stores are excellent places to find super cheap wrapping paper. One roll should be enough to cover the door with extra left over for either gift wrapping or other projects. Also, make sure the tape you use won't leave a sticky residue on the door, mar the paint, or cause other damages that will cost you fines at the end of the year. Try using masking tape as that is least likely to damage the door.

2. Most dorm rooms come with a cork board that hangs over your desk. Use the left over wrapping paper from the door to wrap your cork board. Cut a piece of wrapping paper the same length as the cork board and affix it to the cork board with either staples or push pins.

3. Christmas lights are a sure things for creating Christmas cheer, especially in the dorm room. Since strings of lights can be a bit on the pricey side, try convincing your parents into giving up a string of Christmas lights for you to use in your dorm room. Once you're in possession of Christmas lights, use removable hooks, such as 3M Decorating Clips that won't damage the paint, to hang your lights from either the ceiling, the walls, around a doorway, around a window, or any other place in your dorm.

4. Your dorm window is an often overlooked object to decorate during Christmas. Use window paint, which can be found in craft stores, to paint Christmas scenes such as snowmen, Santa Claus, reindeer, Christmas trees, or snowflakes. For more information on using window paint to paint your windows this Christmas, visit this site which gives a step-by-step procedure: eHow: How to Paint Holiday Windows.

5. If you don't want to use window paint to paint your dorm window this Christmas, but you still want to decorate your windows, try using window clings, which are sticky, jello-like decorations that stick to windows. They can be found in many retail locations, including dollar stores, which would be cheapest.

6. Lastly, if you happen to have a little extra cash sitting around, consider going out and buying a miniature fake Christmas tree to display in your dorm room. Nothing says Christmas more than a miniature Christmas tree. You can find miniature Christmas trees at Target, Walgreens, Home Depot, Meijer, and Walmart, to name a few. They come either bare, where you'll have to get decorations for it, or complete with lights and ornaments.