A Christmas mad mum has found the perfect solution to decorate her family home on a budget - managing to cover every wall for just £15.
Carly Lockie starts her festive celebrations at the start of November each year, and enlists the help of her whole family in the transformation of her three-bedroom Bristol home.
The 36-year-old grew bored of her plain walls after moving in two years ago, and uses 20 rolls of Christmas wrapping paper to turn them into Santa's grotto on a budget, Hull live reports.
Carly enlists the help of window cleaner partner, Mike Phillips, 40, kids, Mayah, 15, Harmonie, 10, Junior, five, and stepdaughter, Kayleigh, 18, to transform her plain, magnolia home into a festive-themed space.
The rolls cost Carly 50 pence a roll and tapes it to the walls in the living room, bedrooms and the kitchen cupboards.
Carly said: "We do the whole house and it takes a long time. We start the first week of November and finish in the first week of December. It's like Santa's grotto.
"Everyone I know loves it but they also think I'm batty. I've got a few bah humbugs in my family so they think I'm crazy.
"The younger kids love it and they bring their friends round to have a look. Mayah pretends not to because she doesn't want to ruin her street cred but she wants her room done too."
The cleaner spends just £15 on the whole revamp spending 50 pence on each roll of wrapping paper and by dusting off old decorations from previous years, including a Christmas tree for each room.
Carly said: "We used two rolls per wall in the living room but the bedrooms are a bit smaller.
"I find the cheapest wrapping paper at 50 pence a roll. The walls were just plain before, a bland magnolia.
"It's great because when I take it down, it feels like we've just redecorated it again.
"The wrapping paper stays up until the 2nd or 3rd of Jan and it doesn't take it too long."
Traditionally, the family would begin the decorating towards the end of November but decided to start earlier this year in memory of Carly's mum, Roz, who passed away in 2020.
Carly said: "My mum bought us a Christmas tree last year and it arrived the day after she died so now we decorate the house a week earlier in tribute to her. It was the last present she ever bought us."
The decorations are taken down after the New Year but the thrifty mum makes sure nothing goes to waste by making Christmas cards out of the used paper.
Carly said: "We never throw any away.
"Nothing goes to waste. All of last year's wrapping paper was used to make Christmas cards for the elderly because there are a lot of care homes in our area.
"We keep the cardboard bit in the middle and just wrap it back around that and put it in storage to use for next year."
