1. Making Your Own Garland
If you live near evergreen trees of any kind, you can make beautiful garland that looks super expensive but is FREE. Love that word. This is the first year I've tried making my own garland and I was really surprised at how easy it is - time consuming, but easy. It's also a lot of fun and can be a great family activity to do with the kids.
Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of the process, but there are a lot of good tutorials out there, like this one from Lily White Designs.
2. Frosting Your Own Garland
So now that you've made your own garland, you can make it look quite festive by frosting it, to make it appear as if it's been dusted by freshly fallen snow. This one I did manage to capture pictures of, and it's super simple. Make sure you do this in a well ventilated area. Hang the garland up so you'll have your hands free to work.
Simply mix 1 cup of white flour or corn starch with a tablespoon or two of glitter.
Next, spray parts of your garland with clear spray paint and then dust on the glitter mixture. It's that simple and it's super pretty.
After hanging the garland, I decorated it with ornaments and I'm really happy with how it came out!
3. Make Your Own Wreath
So, there are tons of ways that you can make your own wreath. You can even use your own evergreen cuttings if you have a foam or wire wreath form. For these wreaths, I cheated because I started with finished wreaths - a grapevine one and a regular artificial evergreen one.
For the grapevine wreath, I used some of the evergreen cuttings I had for the garland. I simply created a little spray using wire to secure the pieces together. Then, I wired the spray to the wreath and finished it off with a bow.
For the evergreen wreath, I wrapped it in ribbon and then added some clip-on pieces I found in the Christmas section as well as some ornaments. I finished it off with a huge red bow and voila - done!
4. Create a Swag for Above Windows or Doors
Again, using the evergreen cuttings that I had for the garland, I created a swag. I simply wired the pieces together with the needles facing different directions. Then, I added a few pine cones using fishing line. I dressed it up using ribbon and over-sized ornaments.
5. Jar Snow Globes
Finally, you can make fun snow globes just using recycled jars and small figurines or trees like I used here. I didn't add water, but you can. Also, adding mineral oil is the best way to get the glitter or snow to fall slowly and beautifully. Mine are empty, but they still have the same sort of look and they're part of my little Christmas tree village.
I just super glued the trees to the lid and sprayed some clear spray paint inside the jar before adding glitter. Then, I closed the jar and hot-glued some ribbon to hide the lid.
I hope you enjoyed these fun projects! Do you have links to your own Christmas DIY projects? Share them here - I'd love to see them.
