Festive and Frugal Holiday Decorating Hacks

— -- We’re counting down to Christmas, and hacks can help make life so much easier and the holiday a lot merrier.

“Good Morning America” viewers Jamie Scott, Janell Inez and Tanya Stewart appeared live on the show on Friday to demonstrate their simple tricks for holiday decorating.

Scott, a mother who runs the blog “Caught in Grace,” detailed her trick for turning Thanksgiving and Halloween pumpkins into Christmas decorations. Scott said she came up with the idea because she didn’t want to throw the pumpkins out. She repurposes the gourds by spray painting three pumpkins white, then stacking them on top of each other to form a snowman. She said the gourds can be glued together for extra stability. Scott said you can use real or fake pumpkins, and decorate the finished products with items found around the house, such as buttons, ribbons and beads.

Inez, who hosts the “Handy Ma’am” web series, offered a way to spruce up an imperfect Christmas tree to make it look fuller. She suggests taking a shiny green garland and wrapping it around the tree – or stuffing it into the tree’s thinner spots – to fill the gaps. She said the trick works on real and fake trees. She also said you can cover up holes in the tree by adding simple white fiber fill for the look of snow in the tree.

Stewart’s hack involves an innovative way to create a gift box. When she posted a video of her hack on Facebook it was viewed more than 17 million times.

Stewart, who runs a photography studio in Dayton, Ohio, said people always seem to end up with boxes without lids or lids without bottoms. She takes those odd pieces, folding each one down at the corners so it lies flat. She then folds one end up so it meets the bottom of the other end, and repeats the process on the other end. Now, you’ll have two creates in the middle on each side. Cut those to make two tabs, fold those down and now you can fold one side into the other to make a brand new box. It’s fast and easy.