Homemade Christmas decorations.

[VoldemortsNipple]

We've had a blue and silver tree for the past few years, but not much else. We had no dining table, the hallway looked like a building site and the front garden was like a weed bed.

We have a bigger home, this year (which is lovely and so are the neighbours) and would love a change. I would love to have a real traditional feel with a mixture a classical homemade and shop bought decorations.

I want to go the whole hog with a real tree, a welcoming hall and porch. The table laid out beautifully. The fireplace decorated.

Any tips how to achieve this on a budget. Holly from the woods would be great but what do I do with it to spruce it up?

Please come and share your ideas :)

Someone on another thread suggested that, if you have a willow tree nearby, go and cut some trailing braches about 4ft in length and twist them into a wreath shape then leave them in the garage to dry for a few months. Then add your holly/ivy/baubles/ribbons etc for your homemade wreath.

My mum decorates her fireplace with greenery from the woods and garden, she puts oasis on the mantel and then puts the holly, spruce etc into it, making a mass green display, she puts the oasis in those takeaway tins from the chinese and indian takeout and places weights in them and glues the oasis so it doesnt fall from the mantel. It is very effective, then around the fire she puts lots of cones found in the woods around candles. This is really pretty. and looks great when she lights the candles.

A large vase full of greenery can also look great, wrap some gold cloth with a gold or red ribbon around the vase.

She also makes her own wreath, like the poster above has suggested.

string of gold beads rather than tinsel, we got ours in Lidl, they do great dec's. Get a selection form different stores.

I made little mini versions of myself and DH out of old fashioned clothes pegs and some felt, I was an angel and DH was a wise man, I then cut out little pics of us doing extreme smiley faces and glued them on, family think they are very funny.

Make salt dough dec's treacleandink.blogspot.co.uk/2011/09/salt-dough-christmas-ornaments.html

DS and I make spiced cookies in star shapes, we cut out a tiny hole using a straw at the top, and a small star in the centre of the raw cookie dough and place a small boiled or fruit sweet in the centre before baking. I buy red green and orange sweets.

When they bake the sweet melts, and once cooled it forms a little coloured window.we decorate with zig zag White icing then thread them and hang on the tree.

When the fairy lights shine through them, they look really cute.

They don't last until Christmas though! Too yummy.

bauble wreath

I had to superglue the caps onto the baubles as lots sproinged off, ho hum

works well with the same shade, say ice blue, but using varying sizes and finishes of bauble (super shiny, matt, glitter, painted etc)

I use holly "au naturel", tucking sprigs behind all the pictures, and trailing it up the side of the staircase intertwined with fairy lights.

But you can spray it first with gold or silver spray paint. Looks best if it's not completely covered with the gold; just dusted with it.

I also make garlands from the Christmas cards, fixing them to ribbons or strings with small gold pegs, then pinning onto the walls. Better than having them falling off the mantelpiece all the time.

A few years ago we were terribly snowed in, and had no craft supplies or tree or anything and myself and dd1 made everything out of newspaper. It looked really lovely and now it's our tradition that we spend a day hacking at newspapers before xmas :)
snow flakes on windows and paper chains look lovely.

Salt dough decorations - I use cookie cutters to get nice shapes. Let them dry then paint, glitter, sequins, beads, anything really.

MyCat- me and dcs made them last year, we had great fun making them

I made a shed-load and our reception children had an afternoon doing them - great fun . Then our Y6's made a load for the local church christmas tree.

to make a realy nice wreath: take an old fashioned wire coat hanger and bend it so its a circle with a hookat the top. fit chicken wire/ mesh all the way around the hoop and stuff it with straw. you can then stick holly, ivy, berries etc into it. finish off with a few baubles, bells or ribbon.

you can use the mesh and hay to make garlands or any shape which you can decorate with holly, pinecones etc. just pack the hay/straw tightly.

peg doll angels and pinecone hedgehogs are good too.

art straws from a craft shop are great fun for corn doll type decorations and can be sprayed with metalic paint. we buy plain baubles and paint them with nail varnishes too

If you can find pine cones in the woods, they make lovely decorations just hung alone or in a big bowl on a table or in an unused firelplace. But you can also have lots of fun painting them, covering in glitter, putting on little eyes etc to make cone decorations or little people/snowmen/elves....

We have a woods near us that has a few different kinds of coniferous trees, so we usually aim for a collection of mixed cones to use for different things (and if we have too many, they are great for lighting fires).

Wow, thanks for all the ideas. I think I need to invest in a glue gun.

How long does holly stay looking nice for? I like my decorations up early December.

Apart from salt dough decorations, what else can we be getting on with. Does anybody make place cards or napkin holders etc.

I've got some ELC paint pads (some colours sold out but red, blue and yellow are still available) and am planning doing some potato stamping with the kids. Probably more for homemade kids christmas cards for DGP, than decorations though. If the paint will stick on acetate, then we could have 'stained glass' decorations to hang in the window.

www.elc.co.uk/on/demandware.store/Sites-ELCENGB-Site/default/Search-Show?q=Paint%20pads

tissue paper, feathers and glitter on acetate sheet, cover with sticky back plastic might also work for a 'stained glass window' effect.

Obviously these are all kids decorations (sorry if you were after something more refined!).

A company called Baker Ross dies great craft ideas / supplies that I have used with children and grown ups if all ages and are very cheap. They have a website and will also send you a catalogue if you request one online.

Does not dies!!

If you have any old christmas cards, cut them into 1cm strips, for each card you end up with about 10 strips about 1x10 cm long. Collect them together in picture order and use a hole punch to make a hole in both ends of the strips, then use two of the brassy paper fasterner things, push one through each hole and open up the fastener(with the rounded ends on the picture sides and the two prongs on the reverse). Then spread out the strips to make a ball type shape, add some string and hang on the tree. Looks quite traditional especially if you use traditional looking cards. Easy enough for a 6yr old to make.

Last year I tried slat dough decorations with dd, but they went totally misshaped with big air bubbles in them after I took them out of the oven - where did I go wrong?

3duracell that sounds like a great idea, mil has saved all her old Christmas cards from last year so will give it a try.

Holly starts to go a bit crispy after 2-3 weeks, but still looks perfectly fine, particularly if you've spray-painted it a little.

3duracell - "brassy paper fasterner things"

Split pins is the technical term, I believe.

That sounds a nice idea - I normally make tags out of my old Christmas cards (it's traditional!), but always have cards to spare.

These paper stars are lovely HERE we make them all sizes and somtimes double shiney paper so they are different colours on each curl.

I start off with A4 paper cut into a square and size up or down from there. I either staple or sellotape the curls depending on size. Sometimes I staple them halfway down the sides to give more stability.

buzzgirly you can 'cook' your salt dough in a very low oven, but some of mine bubbled a bit doing it that way. I did them early and laid them on trays to dry - took about 10 days and you have to turn them every couple of days, but they stay flat and hold their shape that way. Mine were in a fairly cold conservatory though, I'm sure if I could have found room in the airing cupboard it would have been quicker.