Make Your Outdoor Space Festive with Goodwill Finds, Repurposed Items

Transform your outdoor space for the holiday season using items found at Goodwill.  A sequined party dress and shiny kitchen items are combined with salvaged candy packaging for a totally out-of-the-box, one-of-a-kind look to celebrate the spirit of the season.  

Big box or online-bought decorations are so “Bah Humbug!” compared to rethinking everyday items in unique and festive ways.  

Also, your Goodwill finds-turned-holiday-decorations are also so good for Mother Nature as they keep items from needlessly taking up space in landfills. 

Items Needed:

1.      Sequined, long dress

2.      Scissors

3.      Stapler & lots of staples

4.      Metal graters, steamers, and metal baskets with shiny finishes

5.      Shiny packing from candy containers

1.      Find your good & festive items at Goodwill

Sometimes you get a good idea and want to build upon it. 

Recently, I found a great sequined dress at Goodwill that I cut apart and used to give my front door some sparkle and bling for the holidays. 

Wanting to add more to my front porch space where the sequined-covered door is the centerpiece, I hit Goodwill for more shimmery items. 

Check out the store’s racks of dresses to see if you might score big like I did with another dress covered with red sequins.  While there, visit the section where Housewares hang out to see what lightweight items might be given a new role as holiday décor. 

Two metal baskets and a veggie steamer were round and looked like snowflakes or stars to me.  Do you agree? 

Also, several silver, rectangular graters were picked up, too, all for just a few dollars—way less expensive than your run-of-the-mill ornaments. 

Other items you might consider to transform your outdoor space for the holidays are scarves made of lighter-weight fabrics, silk neckties, skinny belts, and even parts of small picture frames!  

Consider this your December DIY challenge to see what items you can find to upcycle for this seasonal and spirited purpose. 

2.      Hang your kitchen items as ornaments

The purpose of a Christmas tree ornament is to add visual delight as well as to reflect light.  Therefore, hang your shiny metal kitchen items (the streamer, graters, and metal baskets) as ornamentation, too, so they move and catch light from the sun or from spotlights at night.    

In my case, I had several long pieces of chain hanging from the top edge of my porch to hold flower baskets. 

Now that the seasons have changed, they were replaced with the Goodwill-found items.  This was super easy for me given the pre-existing and position chains; however, you could use string, twine, or wire as options to hang these pieces in position securely. 

3.      Cut candy packaging to perk up your porch

Don’t you love how the universe works when someone gives you an item, and you are able to reuse it in a unique way?

This happened to me when a friend gave me a bunch of empty candy containers/boxes because he knew I could do something creative with them.  Their gold tones and round sections were perfect for outdoor decorating because of their highly reflective look. 

What do you have in your recycling bin you might enlist in a new way like this?  What about jar lids or small tin cans?  

Each packing section was cut in half and secured on the porch post with a stapler.   The gold color also picked up some of the sparkling sequins covering my front door and complimented my home’s yellow paint tone.

4.      Create strips of sparkle from your dress

Lay down your sequined dress on a flat surface and cut it into strips to give you lots of long pieces of fabric to use.  After creating the sparkling strips, there are so many ways to use them based on your outdoor space.  

In my case, I wanted to hide the chains holding up my repurposed kitchen items, so I tied the fabric strips at the top and then used my stapler to hold them in place around the chain.  This also allowed me to ensure all the sequins were facing outward to catch the light and passerbys’ attention. 

Two pieces were used to dress up the porch posts building upon the candy container package’s shimmery foundation.  These were stapled in place, too.  Smaller fabric pieces were used to hang a trio of silver graters to make the entrance space feel more grand. 

They also resemble bells, too.  Fabric scraps were tied on top of small evergreen plants lined up on the front stoop stairs.   Now they all look cohesive and connected, sporting their red sequin accents.

You could use these fabric strips to wrap about a lamp post or loop them along your balcony railing.  Tie or wire in place so they hold tight when the winds pick up.

 5.      If possible, help your DIY holiday décor to see the light

During the day, all your shimmery and shiny repurposed and reused pieces will look festive, fun, and fetching for sure.  Given their reflective nature and knowing how dark things get so early this time of year, add some sort of outdoor lights to make things sparkle all night long.   

Several spotlights help to illuminate things now, allowing my transformed decorations to strut their upcycled stuff!

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Tim Kime

Artist, Motivational Speaker, Life Coach

Tim Kime is an artist, life coach, and connector. He is the President of Kime Leadership Associates, offering executive coaching, meeting facilitating, and motivational speaking. He is also the Chief Creative Force of Transformation Junkies which upcycles furniture and other household items into functional works of art. He combined his two passions—unleashing the potential in people and transforming items with the launch of the Art of Possibilities Workshops. These workshops are part upcycling, part dreaming, and part goal setting.