I am making popcorn and cranberry garlands for my tree. Does anyone have more good ideas for easy homemade decorations?
By Jilly
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You could cut a heart shape out of poster board and glue a ribbon at the dip to use for a hanger, then glue buttons on it. I have seen pictures of these and they are kind of cool. One year I made bell shapes and stocking shapes out of calico fabric and trimmed them with rick-rack, etc. I cut tow of each shape, sewing them together, and leaving an opening to put a little fiber fill in them, then hand sewed that area together and sewed a piece of yarn on the top for a hanger. On the bells, I sewed a little jingle bell on the bottom.
Pinecones painted white on the edges look real nice on trees and gives it a realistic look. You could even put a thin coat of glue and sprinkle glitter on the pinecones.
Colorful ribbon to make bows and attach to branches would be pretty or use cotton remnant fabric and cut in strips the size needed for making homemade bows.
Acorns would also be something you could use to decorate the tree with. Glue several together on a bare twig and insert in the branches.
Candy canes can also be hung on the tree and there are so many different colors available at Christmas time.
If you use a lot of eggs, you could begin saving the unbroken shells and paint them with Christmas colors and use instead of glass ornaments. Put a hole in both ends of the raw egg a little larger than pin size and blow hard into a bowl. The egg will come out of the shell. My sister painted a dozen egg shells with her acrylic paints and glazed over them to protect and make them shine more. She put hangers on mine with hot glue and store bought fixtures from a craft shop. The egg shells are over 25 years old and still look like they did when I first received them. I just store them carefully in an egg carton when not in use.
You could hot glue a strip of ribbon on top of the pinecones and tie them to branches and form a bow.
I always loaded up the trees with candy canes! We used them for eating, or stirring in hot coffee or hot chocolate! At first everyone thought I was nuts, as they weren't "really" decorations, and then everyone started doing this even on the trees at work! They can "stir" a cup of tea and make it transform. Not sure if you can actually "make" candy canes but let me tell you, with all the beautiful colors they have them in, it can make a tree shine!
When making popcorn strings it is best to let the popcorn get a little stale first(less breakable) use waxed dental floss and a fine long needle to string. I also had better success with packing peanuts instead of popcorn and red beads in place of cranberries. One year I did popcorn and red beads which lasted longer than cranberries.An interesting garland is thread spools wrapped with either wide ribbon or strips of colorful paper(think magazines)then strung on string, yarn or ribbon to make a garland.
My grandchildren made me foil chains for my outside trees. And years later they made new ones for me that we decorated inside of the house. Now almost 2 years ago our great granddaughter started us a chain, just enough to make me smile. GG Vi
Putting little bows on the branches of red are so pretty! Just tie them on the branches yourself the same way you would put on other decorations.
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