Top Tips for Eco Friendly Christmas Decorations
Christmas is certainly the most magical time of the year! However, it’s also the most wasteful time of the year. The festive season has a huge impact on the environment, but luckily, with a few small changes to our typical Christmas routine, we can make a big change to help our environment.
Did you now that the smallest change is the one that makes the biggest impact? Well, here it is, instead of buying new decorations this year, why not make them yourself! All you need to do is follow our easy step-by-step process to making our top five eco-friendly Christmas decorations. From scraps of fabric to using things you may find in your kitchen, these bright, beautiful - and most importantly eco-friendly Christmas decorations will make anyone smile.
DIY Christmas Wreath
Instead of purchasing a shop bought wreath this year, why not make your own?
Unfortunately, many store-bought wreaths are not eco-friendly or sustainable. If they aren’t made from plastic, the greenery used is stuck on with glue!
These five simple items are all you need to create a home-made and eco-friendly Christmas wreath.
- Metal coat hanger
- Foliage
- Twine
- Dried orange slices
- Ribbon
- Take a stroll outside and collect as much foliage as you can, try and collect a variety including different branches, greenery, and berries if available.
- Deconstruct your wire coat hanger and form it into a circle as best as you can, it doesn’t matter if it’s not the perfect shape, that’s what makes it original!
- Bend the hook of your coat hanger into a loop to allow you to be able to hang it up.
- If you have twine available wrap it around the loop to secure it to the rest of the main circle of the wreath, this prevents the loop detaching from the circle when hanging.
- Begin to wrap each piece of foliage around the wire circle and secure them with twine if necessary. Continue to build up your wreath piece by piece with all the foliage you have gathered.
- If you want to make the colour in the wreath pop that bit more, add dried orange slices by piercing the slice of orange and thread some twine or ribbon through it, add this to your wreath as the finishing touch. Not only do the oranges make the wreath look great they make it smell great too!
Paper snowflakes
Paper snowflakes are the perfect addition to a ‘Winter Wonderland’ themed décor around the house. Here is what you will need to get that ‘Winter Wonderland’ look.
- Paper
- Scissors
- Twine
- Cut your piece of paper into a square and then fold it diagonally to make a triangle.
- Fold the triangle again so the pointed corners meet, and you should now have a thinner triangle.
- Fold the triangle for a third time and cut across the bottom of the triangle in a curved line, cut small triangles and curved shapes along all three sides of the folded triangle and then gently unfold your ‘Winter Wonderland’ snowflake.
- Attach a loop of twine to the back of the snowflake and simply turn it into your very own paper snowflake decoration.
Popcorn Tree Garland
Here is what you will need:
- Popcorn
- Cranberries
- Thread
- Needle
- Shellac finishing spray (optional)
Before you start our most import Top Tip when it comes to this eco-friendly DIY Christmas decoration, is to make yourself a bowl of popcorn for yourself to prevent you from eating your garland!
- Air pop your popcorn, but don’t include any of the burnt or broken pieces. Top Tip: it’s recommended to air pop the popcorn as the use of olive oil will shorty make the popcorn go rancid.
- Leave the popcorn out for 2 days so it hardens and becomes strong enough to put thread through it.
- Measure out roughly an arm’s length of sewing thread. Thread your needle and tie a knot where you want your first garland to end.
- Push the needle through the center of the popcorn and pull it through to the end of the thread. Break the pattern up by adding fresh cranberries after every couple of pieces of popcorn.
- Once you have filled your first garland, measure out a new arm’s length of thread and repeat step 4 as explained above. You can tie as many garlands as you want together, to make it as long as you wish.
- Top Tip: Spray the garland with shellac to preserve it, as the fresh cranberries won’t last longer than a day or two.
Homely Twig Candle Holder
Something as simple as the twinkle of a lit candle can give your home that bit more of the cosy Christmas feeling.
Here is what you will need to make your very own Homely Twig Candle Holder.
- Twigs or sticks
- Jar or glass
- Eco friendly glue
- Ribbon
- Clip the twigs or sticks to the same height as the jar or glass you have chosen to use. You can have your twigs trimmed right down or you can also leave a few small branches sticking out to give your candle holder more of a rustic look.
- Apply the glue all around the Jar and stick the twigs on one by one.
- Finish your jar off by wrapping a ribbon around the top or middle of your Jar to give it that completed cozy Christmas look.
Christmas Twig Stars
Everyone has their favourite decoration that they look forward to putting on the tree in the run up to Christmas day, why not make that decoration an eye catching home made eco friendly one.
Here is what you will need to make your very own Christmas twig star:
- Twigs
- String
- Twine
- Gather five twigs or branches of equal size and length.
- Using the string tie two ends of the twigs/ branches together, keep moving the twigs around untill you have completed the star and each end is tied to one another. You will need to over lap some branches as shown in the picture below.
- When you have all the branches in place secure them by tieing string in each of the 10 places as shown below.
- Finish by tieing a loop of twine around the top of your star so you can hang your ornament on the tree.