DIY Christmas Decorations

This year I made the decision to not put our Christmas tree up.  It was a hard decision!  I love my Christmas tree and have always enjoyed setting it up and decorating it but I just couldn't take one more year of vigilantly watching the children for a whole month and constantly screaming 'Stay away from the tree'and 'Don't pull on the decorations'.  

The last few years I have tried to find alternative places to put our tree.  One year we had it set up in our master bedroom.  This worked for the better part of the day as the kids would only be in there with us in the early morning and at bath time in the evening.  Unfortunately, it left the rest of the house looking rather Scrooge like and visitors would automatically assume that we didn't have a tree at all.  So the following year I decided to set it up in our lounge room.  We have a corner in there that can be contained by placing a coffee table on it's side (sort of in the form of a child safety gate) between the sofa and TV unit to stop the kids from getting past it and within reach of the tree.  Needless to say, an upturned coffee table in the middle of your lounge certainly does detract from the beauty of the decorated tree.  Not to mention that once the kids hit a certain age they can just climb over the table anyway!  

So this year I decided to forego our traditional tree and instead to do something a little different.  I was on a budget though, having spent enough on the tree we weren't going to use, I didn't want to be spending any more money on decorations that are only up for one month a year.  So I decided to make my own tree out of twigs and branches and place it on top of the TV cabinet where little fingers couldn't reach.  You may ask why I didn't just put our traditional Christmas tree on the TV cabinet and the answer is that it's just too tall and the ceiling gets in the way.

What to put it in was my first dilemma.  I searched my house for a bucket, urn, pot, vessel of any kind that was not only big enough but also heavy enough to hold some large branches without toppling over.  Whilst searching in my storage cupboard I came across a large vase that a good friend bought me for my birthday a few years back which would be perfect.  It is a duck egg blue that has an iridescent shine to it rather like mother of pearl.  The picture of it below really doesn't do it justice.  

 I love this vase, it is stunning, but the colours just never went in my house. So I decided to sand it down and spray paint it Ivory much to my Mother's horror. 

Mrs Negative said to me "You can't do that! It won't work".

So, just like any normal child I set out to prove my mother wrong and I succeeded beautifully.  (Love you Mum - I am sure you only say these things to push us to do our best!)

Next up to collect some branches, so I took the kids for a walk down to a local park that has a bit of bushland and sent them out to collect twigs whilst I sat on the park bench and shouted out to them "Yes, that's a good one"or "No, that's too small." Once we had a big enough pile I collected them up in a bundle and carried them home (I felt rather like the little pig building his house out of sticks) whilst Master 8 pushed

Master 1 on his Smart Trike and Master's 3 & 5 held on to either end of the bundle of sticks as I had no hands free.  I'm sure we looked a very curious sight as we walked home (and of course the park was down hill from our house so it was an uphill battle getting that bundle home).

Once home we assembled in the newly painted vase and added a few balls, icicles, birds, Swedish crowns and reindeer (from Ikea of course) with a string of lights draped across the vase and we had our tree!

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And here it is at night with the lights on.  

I was sitting back admiring my work when it occurred to me that it was not possible to place the presents under the tree this year ( a thought that had evaded me until after all the hard work) but I was actually not too bothered about it.  It meant the kids couldn't rummage through them ahead of time and nothing would get damaged requiring re-wrapping.

All happy with my DIY tree I decided to continue my DIY decorations through out the house starting with my front door.  I have never had Christmas wreaths up on our door ever but have always wanted them,.  My problem is that we have double front doors so we would need two wreaths and decent ones can be pricey enough for one let alone two.  I wanted them to be simple without looking home made so I got my thinking cap on and looked around the house for any items I had on hand that I could use.  I took an old cardboard box and cut two equal sized circles from them and then cut another circle in the middle.  Master 8 and I sat down with our roll of Ikea drawing paper and cut varying lengths of paper which we then looped and stapled.  Once we had enough we glued them on to the cardboard wreaths and added some red bows that I picked up for $3 at Red Dot.  Bargain!

Here's a close up.  What do you think?

Being that there is still 16 days left until Christmas I am thinking I can still get a few more DIY Christmas decorations up so watch this space!  And I hope you all enjoy making your own decorations as much as we did.  It is so much more enjoyable to sit back and admire the decorations knowing that we created them ourselves.  Merry Christmas!!!