Homemade Christmas Decor

[DearMrDilkington]

I'm on a budget for Christmas this year, but I like to go all out when I decorate the house, so I need some cheap and easy diy Xmas decoration ideas.

Thanks!

PINTEREST is your friend here

Go greenery and see if you can find some holly and so on nearer the time.

Can be used for candle table centre decoration, mantle place decoration, wreath for the door and a bit on picture frames

Over the years I invested in a lovely bannister garland in greens and also a good quality tree. But then I make lots of things from felties to cross stitch to silk painting to sewn things to papercrafts. But yes pinteret :-)

Paper snowflakes, the kind you make at kindergarten.

Popcorn on thread for the tree.

Get a cheap canvas, paint a simple scene, stick a pic of a polar bear or snowman on , punch 24 holes in the 'sky' part then push 24 LED lights through from the back. When you turn them on they look like stars.

Green cardboard cutout to look like mistletoe.

Old Christmas cards cut into shapes to hang on the tree.

Our Christmas is almost entirely made out of ribbon and felt, but it depends where your talents lie.

you don't need to sign up but I will start you off

www.pinterest.co.uk/search/pins/?q=handmade%20christmas%20budget&rs=typed&term_meta[]=handmade%7Ctyped&term_meta[]=christmas%7Ctyped&term_meta[]=budget%7Ctyped

Polar bear

Slice some oranges and stud them with cloves then dry them out on a low heat in the oven, make holes in them prior to cooking for putting string to tie them up. You can also do whole oranges but they take far longer to dry out. I also tie up cinnamon sticks with pretty ribbon. Both make the house smell amazing for the whole Christmas period and cheap and easy to DIY.

You could also go and collect some holly and ivy and tie up in small bunches. I did all of these things last year as it was DP and I's first Christmas with DD and our first Christmas in our own home and didn't have enough money to buy a whole load of decorations.

Definitely keep it natural themed and gather what you can. I have a holly bush but I also use rosemary and bay because the scents are lovely. Any interesting leaf is in play though. Gather pine cones and white wash and add glitter if you want some sparkle. Find an old branch and paint it white and suspend decorations or make some Pom pond if you have wool. These voltives are nice and look like they're just jam jars and tea lights with pine cones greenery and garden twine.

Yes for oranges too! Smell delicious. I forgot that you can also make simple decorations out of air dried clay and leave white or paint as necessary. It's a good craft with children. I use them for decorating home made gifts like biscuits that I give in a Pretty jar. ( TK Maxx for these).

Thank you all!

We made paper baubles last year (pretty sure I found it on Pinterest) we kept them white, and it looked really effective. We'll probably do them again this year.

Like these, but I also made different shapes.

Paper chains using a few sheets of different coloured paper or even spare or old wrapping paper - cut into strips and randomly (or not) mixed together.

Cotton wool to make a snowscene around a small tree (off cut from a big tree) or on a sheet of card.

Pine cones with glue dabbed on and glittered, and using some twine or ribbon to make loops for the tree.

Keep an eye out now for long strands of ivy or good holly to use. Things with berries. Dried teazels (sp?) look great in flower arrangements and they are getting nicely dry at this stage for cutting in the wild. If you can find plenty of greenery and berries from nature, then getting a very few individual flowers in a florist (maybe 3 red roses and a stem of baby's breath?) means you could do a lovely flower arrangement for very little (you may even have some in your garden or know someone who would let you have something from their garden, or know where there are nice wildflowers in bloom in midwinter). You could always add a candle to the middle (get 3/4/5 "spent" matches (that you've lit and blown out) and sellotape those around the base of the candle as "legs" to stabilize it in the oasis - means you don't need to go buying the candle base that florists use).

Get the cinnamon sticks from an Asian supermarket - they will be a lot cheaper and they sell them in bigger bags so the sticks are longer which is nicer for decorating. You could also get some star anise while there, to decorate and make nice smells, and the cloves for the oranges.

And while you are there anyway, get the spices for mulled wine/cider mixes, and make up homemade versions to give as presents for half the cost (and far more flavor) of commercial packs.

Love all these ideas, thank you all!

Any ideas for outdoor decor?

I googled 'diy outdoor christmas decorations' and i'm crackers about some of these:

Thrre is another but i have filled my MN phoyto quota for the day

But have a look yourself, there is some very cheap but creative and effective stuff out there.

If you go to somewhere that sells Christmas trees, you can usually get the offcuts from the bottom branches for free.

I pile them up in my (unusable) fireplace with logs and pinecones and fairy lights.

I collect ivy to make a wreath.

I use more of the tree branches to line a small basket which I fill with conkers and pine cones and dried orange slices and some club hedgehogs the DC made when they were little, and I sprinkle it all with The White Company Winter fragrance oil.

I made a snowman and reindeer out of a pile of books and some paper. I can't get a decent link, but if you Google "snowman book decoration" you will see lots of examples.

I like to find quite a big branch, take it inside to dry out (start looking now) and hang it up, with lights and a few decorations, above the dining table.

If you like your decorations to be fun rather than elegant and you have a white fridge, you can blue-tack coloured paper onto the fridge to make it look like a snowman.

Basically forage for natural decorations, put fairy lights and candles everywhere, make the house smell Christmassy and then the odd bit of cheap tat from a bargain shop (I'm looking at you, poundshop robin and flowers on my wreath) looks tasteful.