If your home decor is in need of updating, but your bank account is feeling pain, no worries. Adding style to your home decorating can be easy, fast and free. Here are 15 creative DIY home decor ideas to bring personality to any room, without spending any cash!

15 Free DIY Home Decor Ideas

Cut branches and greens from your own backyard.

HGTV decorating expert ‘Emily Henderson’ uses this secret styling hack to save hundreds of dollars in floral charges for her photo shoots!

Use leftover paint to make DIY home projects in an hour!

Check out our post on 10 Ways to Use Up a Quart of Paint!

Style your bookshelves with things from around the house.

This DIY home decor idea is fun, I love restyling! I take all my knick knacks and books, anything pretty, and put them all on one table to start. That way I can see everything I have to choose from. Check out our post on How to Style Bookshelves.

DIY wall art ideas are all over social media.

We love this large wall art project from ‘A Piece of Rainbow’. She even gives you the printable to create this piece, using old frames!

Rehang all your wall art, gallery style.

Better yet, create a gallery wall with all your kid’s perfect paintings! We are in love with how ‘The Caterpillar Years’ turned children artwork into real wall art that looks amazing! Check out how she did this!

DIY Home Decor Ideas for Free

Make teacup planters and mini terrariums.

You can use glassware around the house in order to make little mini gardens. Check out our post on DIY Teacup Gardens over at our sister site, TGG! Photo by ‘Curbly’. If you want grow some herbs from seed, check out our post on the top garden seed catalogs at TGG.

Try scrap wood DIY!

Noting Grace’ has a great tutorial for this pretty blanket ladder they made with scrap wood and a weekend! You can also search Pinterest for hundreds of DIY home decor ideas using scrap wood, complete with step by step tutorials. If you don’t have any laying around the garage, ask at construction sites for some pieces of scrap wood. Nine times out of ten they are happy for you to haul it away if you ask first. Check out our post on DIY Blanket Ladders too!

Use fabric from clothing you no longer use.

Pretty prints and textured sweaters make amazing pillow covers, can be used to recover chairs, and even used as wall art! We love these easy DIY sweater pillows from ‘Viva Veltoro’. She take you through how to cozy up your home with this simple DIY home decor idea! Oh, and it’s recycling too!

Renew your mats.

No, not your door mats. Your picture mats! Cover them with paper, fabric or contact paper to give the room a jolt of freshness. Don’t have mats? Cut them from recycled cardboard and cover them. Use a straight edge and a utility knife. Make sure not to use a busy pattern, it takes away from the artwork. And of course, use a color accent that is part of your rooms’ scheme. ‘Design Sponge’ shows you just how to cover your existing photo mats with fabric. You can use recycled fabric from your closet, something from the linen shelf, or fabric scraps from crafts projects.

Framed art.

Anything can be framed. Remember, you probably already have frames filled with boring prints or old photos. Change it up! Frame maps, calendar pages, a pretty scarf, or even objects like old keys, your Grandmothers sugar spoons, or a collection of graphic labels. Check out ‘Apartment Therapy’s’ post on ideas for things to frame!

Use nature.

Branches, flowers, seed pods…many things from nature can be displayed, and can be gotten for free. Just be sure you are not collecting irresponsibly. Check out our post on Decorating with Branches over at our sister site, OhMeOhMy!

b3459fe6bb9dee4f0afd16f5ed0668c7

Borrow from your linen closet.

Sheets make terrific curtain panels, duvets covers, headboard covers, or table cloths.

The kid’s art box.

A marker or some craft paint and a little imagination is all it takes to add personality to a room. Need free graphics for your decorating, AND free tutorials on how to transfer them to your furniture, fabrics, etc? Visit The Graphics Fairy!

Cover books with paper.

You already have books, make them decor! Cover all your books with a pretty paper that matches your color scheme, or go natural and cover them in brown paper bags from the grocery store. (And you’re recycling!) Go to the ‘Twig and Thistle‘ to find out how they covered their books with decorative paper.

280738dc54cd1e161782becf1b070956

Kitchen finds.

So many things in the kitchen have decorative value, the trick is to use them purposefully. A collection of clear glass on the windowsill with a single flower in each one? A bowl full of fruits and veggies on the table? Platters, bowls and plates can be stacked and hung in almost any room of the house. Look through those cupboards with a new eye. See how Jenna Sue Design uses ordinary items from around the house to decorate her modern farmhouse kitchen shelves, below.

So no matter how tight your budget is, you can find DIY home decor ideas that are free to use all around your home! We think you will also love our posts on How to Make Paper Roses,  Dollar Store Organizing and Dollar Store DIY! And if you want to save money outdoors too, check out our post on Growing Seeds Indoors over at TGG!


This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our disclosure for more info.

6 Comments

  1. winnie July 16, 2014 at 6:01 am

    i would like to join you people thanks. i want to know more about fabric decoration. i love that

    Reply
  2. Marietta July 20, 2014 at 6:21 am

    I love this site ,I am a tinkerer by nature and the ideas are right up my alley…….

    Reply
  3. Leah January 23, 2015 at 4:18 am

    This was a great article. Too many decorating articles start with the idea of go and spend. Sometimes you need a fresh look and your purse is squinched. It is great to see these no cost new perspective solutions. Good on you guys!
    One of my meditations is to wander/wonder through goodwill and think of how many ways one can repurpose a cheapo item with a bit of life in it. Frugal decorating can be fun, creative and beautiful. One of my favorite projects was taking a fugly wedding dress and cutting it down for a “lounging robe” beaded, bejewelled and surprising comfortable. I’ve also done a plant stand into a birdbath and a kitchen rolling microwave cart into a fancy corner bar for the living room. Creativity doesn’t cost a dime and thrifting is a very cool way to get a unique (cough cheap cough) base to work with.

    Reply
    1. Vicki April 4, 2015 at 9:01 am

      Beautiful ideas!

      Reply
  4. Deepali May 25, 2015 at 6:13 pm

    hey amazing ideas, planning to decorate my new house would like to know more

    Reply
  5. Richard November 28, 2016 at 9:58 pm

    amazing idea. hope to make one of them.

    Reply

Leave A Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.