Homemade Holiday Decorations

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Posted by @plantladylin on
For easy homemade holiday decorations, collect items from your garden. Pine cones, pruned branches from evergreen shrubs or trees, holly branches with berries attached, and even grape vines are garden items that will work well for simple and easy projects.

Get the children involved in the holiday fun and let them create something special for decorating their room or the family Christmas tree! Collect vines to form into a little nest shape and add leaves, tiny twigs, moss, or a tiny bow. Paint small marbles or pebbles to resemble little bird eggs and glue them into the center of the nest.

With a little adult help and supervision, even the youngest children can join in the fun of creating a special ornament. A simple project for young ones is to coat a pine cone in Elmer's Glue (or an adult can use spray craft adhesive) followed by rolling the pine cone in colored glitter. Let dry for 30 minutes or so and tie a ribbon around the bottom end of the decorated pine cone for hanging on the tree or on a door knob.

For those who may not have a garden, making your own decorations is still possible using artificial greenery and ornaments. Visit the clearance section of your local craft store, or better yet, check out thrift stores and dollar stores for decorating supplies. To make an inexpensive and pretty decoration, take a single stem of artificial greenery, snip off the pointed wire at the end of the stem to a more desirable length, and tie a pretty bow at the stem end. It can be hung on the wall, on a door knob, or on the front door. Another idea for this item is to use it as a package decoration. After wrapping your gift, instead of plopping on a bow, simply tape the greenery stem to the top of the box. I've also used these on decorative boxes without wrapping paper.

Recently I made some quick and simple items to use as donations for the raffle table for "Christmas in the Gardens" at our local Botanical Gardens. I collected Tillandsia (Spanish Moss) and Bromeliads (Air Plants) that had blown out of trees after a storm. I placed them all in a large trash bag, sprayed garden safe insecticidal soap inside, tied up the bag, and let it sit for about 48 hours to kill any possible mites or bugs. I did consider baking it in the oven, but I was afraid it would be too smelly or that I'd forget it and cause a fire.

I found some grape vine wreaths stored in a closet, so I dug them out, and my project began. I wanted to keep a couple of the wreaths natural, so I wrapped them with tillandsia and then I wired on a few bromeliads and finished with a natural jute ribbon and bow. For a couple of other wreaths, I used red or gold ribbon and wired on sprigs of holly berries and artificial greenery, and added a silk poinsettia flower. I glued a little bird nest at the base of some of the wreaths, put a bit of the spanish moss in the nest and added a tiny bromeliad, along with a little feathered bird that I picked up at a craft store.

After running out of the moss and bromeliads, I ended up with one small 6" wreath and I needed to figure out what to use to decorate that one. I had some seashells that I'd collected from the beach over the years and a couple of little craft store starfish left over from a long-ago project, so I ended up wrapping the little wreath with sheer gold ribbon, tied a bow at the bottom, and glued sea shells and starfish all around for a "Florida" wreath. The first person whose raffle number was called chose that prize from the raffle table! The others went quickly as well.

Unfortunately, I didn't take photos of those items I made for our raffle table, but I do have pictures of a few decorations I made last week using artificial greenery. Very simple items were made using a few greenery sprigs, ribbon, and my trusty little glue gun!
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I was with a friend shopping at a local craft store recently and saw a project made by store personnel, originally listed at $89.99 and on sale for $49.99. I looked it over closely and thought about buying it but knew that I could make it for less because the store had all holiday greenery, ornaments, etc. at 50% - 60% off. So I went about finding each item I'd need for my project, came home, and put it together in about 30 minutes. It consisted of a plastic gold charger plate, a small artificial wreath (glued to the plate), the artificial tree, and Santa glued in the center with sprigs of greenery, pine cones, silk poinsettias, etc. glued all around. The one on display in the store didn't have the star or ribbon on the tree, but I had a 3 pack of little gold stars and extra ribbon so I added them to mine. The final cost was $26.00.
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The store also had some little decorated artificial trees on display. I had bought a bunch of ornaments on sale, so I decided to decorate a tree using some of the same ornaments. I added a little bird, a tree top star, and ribbon to my project.
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These were all a lot of fun to make. Believe me, I have no creative talent, but I can use a glue gun and I can tie a bow, so it was easy!

Visit your local craft store for a few sprigs of greenery, or pick up a few little items around your garden; get out the ribbon and glue and have fun creating decorations for yourself or gifts for family and friends. All it takes are a few supplies and a little imagination!
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Happy Holidays, Everyone!

 
Comments and Discussion
Thread Title Last Reply Replies
Beautiful! by vic Dec 19, 2012 1:27 PM 4

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