Alternative Christmas Lights

Festive window ideas, for those times when you just can't put lights in the window or on the front of your house.

Before we start I'm just going to say windows are ridiculously difficult to photograph! Day and night - each just as tricky, both bringing their own issues. So I do realise these photos are not my best. But this is a fun idea, so let's just go with it!

Lots of people put lights on their house or in their windows at Christmas time, it's pretty and festive and mostly very lovely (in my humble opinion anyway) In our old house we would string lights at the window but where we live now it's not practical. There are wooden shutters in the way and no electric sockets near by either. So for the 3 Christmases we've lived here I've been trying to find something a bit different for the front window. 

The first year we had a very last minute quick idea. Papercuts. 

I just very quickly cut some trees, houses, stars and snowflakes and taped them to the glass. 

Last year I raised my game a little. I had received some chalk marker pens and had already used them for our Festive Mirror Fun and to draw a wreath on the back door. I spent a good hour drawing a pretty Christmassy scene with the white chalk marker. Snowflakes, houses with little windows and doors, a church, some festive trees. All very much like the paper cuts from the previous year but better. The whole thing looked very classy ... from the inside ... when the shutters were wide open and it was dark outside. HOWEVER, our house is very close to the pavement and we always keep our shutters pulled shut, but slanted open. What colour are our shutters? They are white. Like my drawings! Ops! 

You couldn't really see my drawings at all, just a light shadow in the evening when the street light was on! It was so bad I didn't even take a photo. i found this image online (sorry I can't find who to credit it to, I kept going round in a circle from Pinterest to google images and back) It was very similar to this but with more snowflakes and no St Nicholas:

I am not someone to be easily deterred! I was determined to make this work! This year I was lucky enougth to recieve some Wow Markers, dry wipe pens from Carmel . So with these chunky wide tips pens and my old Chalk markers from last year I was ready to do something colourful - something that could actually be seen!

All you need to decorate your windows with these easy alternative Christmas lights are wipeable marker pens.

This was SO simple, you don't really need to be able to draw to try this. Take a black dry wipe marker or chalk marker and draw a wiggly line round 3 sides of your window. Add a loop or two as you go if you are feeling adventurous! Draw on some oval shapes with bright coloured dry wipe markers or chalk markers and colour them in. Then using your black marker again, outline them, add a black rectangle at the ends and join them to your wiggly line. 

It's simple, it's fun, it's a easy way to add a tiny bit of Christmas cheer to the outside of your house. It's a lot easier to do that to photograph that's for sure! 

In the new year they just wipe away with a damp cloth. For me this is the prompt for me to do our annual window clean! 

I’ve a few different ideas for decorating windows with pens like this here to : Christmas Windows

I’ll be sharing this project at these link ups