Last minute Christmas decor

I’m probably not like a lot of people I know, in that I leave much of our Christmas decorating until later in December and nearer to Christmas. It feels slightly more festive and special to me if I delay it just a little bit. This year has been particularly delayed as we’ve had a few weeks of messy run up to the festive period.

This is the first year since leaving home many many years ago that I’ve had a real Christmas tree, and we’ve just done things a little differently to make that extra special touch of not the norm.

It is with help from Hobbycraft that we’ve managed to achieve that. Hobbycraft were very kind in sending me some items so we could make ourselves some most fabulous additions for the home. So I got my girls involved, we made hot chocolate, put Christmas tunes on and this is what we made. Firstly, Neets set about decorating a more traditional 35cm artificial green wreath. Made of wired artificial foliage, already fixed in a round wreath shape, the stems are easily bent in to place.

Neets had a selection of decorations to add, including red buttons, pom poms, clip on robins and ready tied bows.

Firstly, she tied some buttons on with red wool in random places. Then using a glue gun, stuck the pom poms on in groups. The bows have a twist tie on the back, so were easily fixed in place, then the robins last of all simply clipped on.

The final thing she did was to paint a little green glitter glue over some of the branches to add a little sparkle.

Lulu’s task was to decorate 3D mache letters spelling out the word Noel, with a snowflake in place of the “O”.

She was using acrylic paints, glitter glue and sequins for decoration.

These letters are great, as you can decorate them any way you wish. Any colour, texture, pattern. They stand at 10cm high, and have a wide base to be able to stand upright on.

Lulu decided on cool wintery colours, so used silver and pale blue acrylic paint. She painted the fronts, then the sides. It took two coats of each paint to achieve a better look.

Once the paint had dried, Lulu decorated each letter with glitter glue and sequins. She did each letter slightly differently. The glitter and sequins look fab with light on them. Once done, we’ve stood the letters on the mantel, and they really stand out.

Meanwhile, I had a couple of different projects to be getting on with.

I had a 30cm natural rattan wreath, that I wanted to create a wintery look with. I had jingle bells, satin silver ribbon and a spray of snowy white blossom.

I started off by painting the rattan with glitter dust paint, a very fine sparkle to give a frosty look.

I then added silver glitter glue for extra twinkle.

After this had dried, it left a light sparkle.

Next I snipped sprigs of the white blossom and weaved them round the twigs, intertwining them between, and securing underneath. I didn’t use glue for this as the weaving held the stalks in place.

Then I wrapped the ribbon all the way round the wreath, and fastened in a bow.

I attached the jingle bells using a glue gun, just in random places and in random sizes all around the wreath.

Wreath finished and dried, I hung with jewellery wire to one of our doors in the hallway.

I rather love it, every time the door opens and closes the bells jingle.

For our fourth item, we had a mache Christmas chalet. This cute little chalet is 15cm tall, and comes with removable roof, so can be used to put something in or as I decided upon, adding a little light.

The mache is an easy surface to paint, and basically it’s up to you how decorate and with what. I love this idea, because every time it can be unique to you. It gives great potential for creativity. Ideally I would have liked to have got a chalet each and just let everyone do their own thing.

Anyway, for this particular one I decided to use red, gold and silver acrylic paint, and to decorate with glitter. I decided to paint the inside too, as you can see through the windows and door; and with choosing silver paint, I thought this would reflect the light from inside.

Look how nice it looks with a small light inside. Please note for safety reasons this is obviously not a real candle, but a fake battery operated one.

This was such a nice activity to be able to do with my girls. I certainly enjoyed being able get creative myself, and have a little time out, and doing that with my girls was just that little bit nicer. Creating simple, easy yet effective pieces for the house is so much fun, and worthwhile too. Each piece looks wonderful and has added something extra and special to our Christmas house.

It may be less than a week until Christmas now, and usually Christmas crafting is done way in advance (ideally), but this is my hectic life and I know I’m not alone in that. It’s not too late to do something yourself, and it’s certainly in good time for ideas for next year. I hope that somehow this may give you some inspiration or ideas for your own Christmas crafting.

All the items for making these can be bought at Hobbycraft, online or in the store. Nothing was bank breaking in cost, and yet the end results are so effective.

FUSS FREE LIVING RATINGS

Appearance 10/10 I cannot knock anything about the appearance of any of the items we used. All the products are good quality and look fantastic, especially when glittered up for Christmas.

Convenience 10/10 The products we worked with were easy to use.

Value 10/10 Good value products from Hobbycraft. The wreaths vary in price according to size, these two were £3-£4 each. The Christmas chalet £4 and the Noel letters less than £5. If you add the decorations, you still aren’t breaking the bank to be able to create some really effective Christmas crafting. I highly recommend any of them.

A very festive thank you to Hobbycraft for supplying all the items above and making this a special Christmas crafting time.

All opinions are our own.