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Last minute Christmas decor

December 20, 2015 By Jen 4 Comments

21. House and Noel lit up

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.

01. Traditional wreath materials

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.

02. Traditional wreath finished

03. Traditional wreath close up robin

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.

12. Noel materials

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.

14. Noel painting sides

13. Noel painting

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.

15. Noel decorated

16. Noel finished in light

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.

04. Twiggy wreath materials

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

05. Twiggy wreath first coat

I then added silver glitter glue for extra twinkle.

06. Twiggy wreath second coat

After this had dried, it left a light sparkle.

07. Twiggy wreath glittery

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.

08. Twiggy wreath with flowers

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

09. Twiggy wreath added ribbon

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.

11. Twiggy wreath finished

10. Twiggy wreath bells stuck on finished

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.

17. House raw

18. House raw with roof off

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.

19. House painting

20. House finished with glitter

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.

22. House lit up

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.

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Comments

  1. Ana De- Jesus says

    December 20, 2015 at 9:00 pm

    I am running seriously behind with my Christmas decor. You have some gorgeous ideas.

    Reply
    • Jen says

      December 21, 2015 at 9:47 am

      Got to admit, I like to leave it a little later in the month. Feels slightly more festive then, and I don’t get sick of it all by Boxing day.

      Reply
  2. Agata says

    December 20, 2015 at 9:37 pm

    I am still in process of putting some final touches… can’t believe Christmas is only a few days away

    Reply
    • Jen says

      December 21, 2015 at 11:25 pm

      Shhh. After a day of running myself ragged, I realised today just how much prepping I still have to do. But one will do it with a smile on one’s face. Like a certain large company is saying this year, “My Christmas, my rules”.

      Reply

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