Decorate A Dorm Room For Christmas For £5 ($9)

My dorm room is pretty standard. I have a fixed bed, desk, wardrobe, and shelves. I’m lucky enough to have a small en-suite and the building itself only opened last year so I am the second person to occupy this space. It’s  about half the size of last year’s dorm, including the en-suite (last year’s had none). The desk doesn’t wobble and I can’t hear the footsteps of my neighbours, so I’d say it’s a good room. But when it comes to decorating, I have to think about a lot of things.

All of my decorations need to be easily brought back to Canada with me. University housing has some sort of vendetta against blue tac, so I can’t use that. Too much paper on the walls will be considered a fire hazard and will get me in trouble. To top it all off, my room is really small.

But I did not let any of that get in the way!

I spotted this tiny pink Christmas Tree in a store called Paperchase. I’m pretty sure it’s a UK store because I’d never heard of it before. It’s like Hallmark, except for young people instead of grandparents. The tree was only £4.50 ($8.16CAD) which now that I’ve made the conversion, isn’t as cheap as I thought, but too late now. I didn’t actually have enough money the first time I saw it, but I picked it up the second time I went past. I also got the owl postcard just because I liked it and thought it went well with the tree (£0.50), and normal green mini tree for my friend who I promised a Christmas Tree (She took it as a joke, but I showed her!). A photo of her tree is to the right.

Because the tree is so small, I can put it anywhere with lots of space to spare! Right now, for example, it is sharing the surface of my bedside table with a bunch of makeup, a pair of earrings, the alarm clock in the photo, a water bottle, and a hairbrush. The branches are flexible wire so I could probably stuff it into my luggage without too much of a problem. I can just imagine taking it through security:

“Ma’am, would you care to explain why we are detecting higher than usual amounts of metal in your carry-on bag?”

“Um…it’s a pink Christmas Tree.”

To finish off my temporary decorations, I stuck a couple of Christmas cards from friends on the side of my dresser with…good old scotch tape. It doesn’t stain or peel off paint and it does the job for cheap.

So I decorated my room for the holidays all for £5 and it is all easily removable, portable, and not against the rules. Of course, if I wanted to get a little more into things, I could buy tinsel like I did last year. That stuff comes in five yards a pound. I could probably drape it across my whole ceiling…but last year there were little tinsel pieces everywhere so I thought I’d keep it simple this time around.

Have any suggestions for temporary decorating? Tell me in the comments blow!