The first candle burning on the Advent wreath reminds us that Christmas is almost here, and we can finally bedeck our hearts and souls with festive clothes again, not to mention our carefully purchased Christmas tree. Making your own decorations makes your Christmas tree even more unique, and it can also be a great way to get in the mood if you involve your loved ones, even the kids. See how you can make unique Christmas tree decorations at home for pennies! We’ve brought you three very simple and one a little more complicated DIY ideas.
From Wooden Discs
You can buy it from a hobby shop, but you can also cut a 5 cm diameter tree branch into pieces to make the base for this ornament, which only needs a hole and you can start getting creative. You can draw on it with alcohol markers or paint on it with tempera, the technique and the end result is up to you. Once you’re done with the ornament, thread some yarn or thread into the hole and hang it on the tree!
From Yarn
Take a piece of cardboard and cut out a design of the size and shape you would like to see hanging on your Christmas tree, for example a star or a heart. Start wrapping the cutout cardboard shape tightly with a thin thread until the cardboard doesn’t stick out at all! At the end, cut the yarn and carefully work the end under the rolled up yarn, which you fix with a drop of glue! Use the same thread or a thinner ribbon to make a hanger, which you can also fix with glue, and you have your first homemade ornament. Now you’re ready for the next one!
From Paper
From an old newspaper or book, cut strips of different lengths but the same thickness, then staple them together at the top and bottom to form a heart shape. Tie a string through them and the end result is a simple, yet charming vintage ornament. A must-have for your bookworm tree!
Sparkling porcelain clay from baking soda
Ingredients:
- 1 glass of soda bicarbonate
- 1/2 a glass of edible starch
- ¾ of a glass of water
Preparation:
Combine the measured ingredients in a saucepan and heat gently, stirring constantly. As it heats up, it will start to make a whisking sound as a sign of thickening. Heat until you have a pliable, resin-like mass, and then turn the mass out onto the worktable. If you want fragrant decorations, then add essential oil, or food coloring in case of colored ones. Make several small balls of it and leave them to cool under foil. When they are cold and well formed, roll out the first shape into 3-4 mm thickness; it is not worth making them any thinner.
If the mixture gets too sticky, sprinkle a little corn flour on top. After rolling out, the surface of the sheet can be patterned with cookie stamps, lace, a patterned rolling pin or a toothpick. You can cut the decorated sheet into shapes using the mouth of a cup, a cookie cutter or even a knife to cut out a unique shape. Finally, do not forget the hole to thread the hanger through! Ornaments made this way will dry hard in 1-2 days at room temperature, but you can speed up the process by reheating them in the oven at approximately 80-100 degrees C. Once they are hard, all you have to do is decorate your tree with your beautiful, glittery, handmade ornaments. It is not only pretty, it is also cheap: you can decorate a small pine tree for just a few hundred forints using this technique.
