Decorate with Natural Decor
Using seasonal holiday decorations made of natural materials can add a fun and festive atmosphere to your indoors and outdoors, not to mention their Earth- and budget-friendliness.
Collect materials with which to make your decorations year-round—collect spruce and other evergreen clippings when you trim your outside foliage. When you’re outside on a walk, look for dried flowers and other vegetation like nuts, berries, and pinecones. The change in seasons will provide a plethora of textures and colors. The more you think ahead, the better stockpile you’ll have to make Christmas decorations.
Try some of these tips on how to decorate with good cheer, the natural way.
Step 1: Make Your Own Wreath
Design your own custom wreath. Gather trimmings from your yard or from your new Christmas tree. Cedar, pine, and fir provide great materials for wreath greenery. The tips of these boughs work best. Collect a couple of handfuls of holly or similar berries with leaves for added effect.
Create a frame for the wreath using a standard wire coat hanger; bend it into a circle—you can use its hook to hang the wreath when it’s completed. Bunch a handful of trimmings together with all the stems at one end and attach them to the coat hanger frame with floral wire. The floral wire should be wrapped around the frame as you go along, connecting the bundle of clippings to the frame. Wrap the wire around the bundles a second time, and be sure it is pulled tight and that each successive bundle covers the clippings’ stems. When all bundles have been attached, twist the wire around the last bundle and knot it onto the frame. Trim excess wire with wire cutters.
Use floral wire or a glue gun to attach the holly bundles or some pinecones to the frame, the same way.
Step 2: Make Natural Garland
Make your own garland. Garland is great for decorating stairs, banisters, and mantels, and anywhere else you think it looks appropriate and attractive. Like wreaths, evergreen branches are perfect for making garland. If you don’t have enough from clippings to work with, you can also find them at garden centers (you will need branches that are about 12″ long).
Trim or shake off dead or loose needles. Place one branch on top of another and be sure that there is no gap between sections of needles. Use floral wire to fasten the two branches together by wrapping the wire around them three or four times. Continue to do this with your other branches—fasten each section together by wrapping them with the wire and tying the wire off tightly.
Attach some holly or pinecones using a hot glue gun. Make sure that you press these additions down firmly and hold them for a couple of minutes until the glue sets.
