This Christmas I’ve felt more crafty than ever and I’ve loved creating home-made, special bits for decorations and wrapping. I wanted to share what have been my best Christmas crafty bits this year…

Pinecone Garlands

A dead simple decoration but, it spruces up any area that’s looking a little less festive than everywhere else.

Need:
• String or ribbon,
• Pine cones,
• White/silver/gold paint,
• Sponge,

Steps:

1. If your pinecones are closed, pop them on a tray in the oven at 180 degrees Celsius for as long as they need until they open up, then leave to cool.
2. With the sponge, pat white (or silver or gold) paint onto the tips of the pinecones (or spray paint them) then leave to dry.
3. Tie the base of the pinecones with string or twine then hang!

Gift Tags

I know a roll of sticky tags is about a pound but is there anything better than a prettily wrapped present under the tree? A home-made gift tag makes it just that little bit more special.

Need:
• Glitter card,
• Foam pads,
• Patterned paper,
• Black Sharpie,
• String/twine

Steps:

1. If they’re not already, cut the glitter paper into a tag shape and punch a hole through the top.
2. Next, cut a triangle shape from patterned paper (use a stencil or create one).
3. At the bottom of the tag, draw a spring shape for the tree’s base.
4. Apply foam sticky pads to the back of the triangle then attach to the tag.
5. Simple tie your string or twine through the hole and you’re done!

Homemade Christmas Cards

For a few years I’ve wanted to make my own Christmas cards but with uni and other commintments I’ve never had chance, but this year I finally could! I made about 32 of these cards (with a few extras), that’s over 64 trees!

Need:
• Cutting board,
• Craft knife,
• Patterned paper,
• Self-adhesive gems,
• Glue stick,
• Square, plain white cards and envelopes.

Steps:

1. Make little and large tree master copies/stencils, the tallest wants to be just over half the height of the card and the little tree just a bit shorter (making sure they both fit on the card).
2. Cut the tree shape using the stencils 4 times from 4 different patterned paper and fold in half. There should be 4 pieces of paper per tree.
3. Glue the white sides together until you are left with two white sides that lay flat.
4. Glue the two sides onto your card so that you can see all four different papers on each tree.
5. Then I added some self-adhesive gems to look like stars and a ‘Merry Christmas’ sign that I printed, you could easily just hand-write this.
   A much easier alternative is to simply adopt the design from the gift tags and just apply them onto a card!

I’m sure right up until Christmas day I’ll be crafting away, I’ve loved being able to create something this year. I’ll be sharing everything else I make on my Instagram so go have a look to keep up!

Merry Christmas

-Lauren