This past week I had the pleasure of doing a demonstration on DIY holiday crafts for the South Leaside Moms Group. Here are the coles notes for those of you who would like to try getting their craft on! Don’t be afraid of being creative, we all have a little crafty elf in us, somewhere.

Wreath

The wreath is definitely a holiday favorite and not only is it pretty but it also adds that scent of Christmas to your house. For those that don’t have a real tree make a real wreath! You can also put it on your dining room table and place some candles in the centre, makes a beautiful centrepiece.

Materials

1 bough of pine

1 bough of evergreen or any other type of Christmas greenery

1 coat hanger

Pliers

Pine cones

Ribbon

Green Wire (can be purchase at the dollar store)

Cranberries

Directions

Step 1: Using gardening shears cut off sections of your boughs that will be good size for your wreath. Using your pliers turn your coat hanger into a circle. It’s best to use a somewhat flimsy wire coat hanger, as the stiff ones are harder to manipulate. Once you have formed your circle you can begin designing your wreath. For those of us with Type A personality you can lay out your whole wreath in advance and get the exact look you desire. For those of who are a bit more whimsical you can create as you go along. Select pieces from your boughs and attach them to the wire circle by using your green wire. You should work with one very long piece of wire as opposed to continually cutting pieces. You need to affix your greenery by simply wrapping the green wire around the coat hanger as well as the piece of bough.

Step 2:

Your wreath will slowly begin to take shape, a trick to making a full wreath is to use two different types of boughs. However, if you prefer the look of one you can stick to just one type of bough. Once you have completed your wreath you can use your gardening shears to give it a bit of a haircut if needed. Now you can get all fancy and add all sorts of doodads to your wreath, or you can just leave it plain. For the demo, I added pine cones and cranberries. To attach the pine cones I took the green wire and wrapped it around the pine cone, making sure it was not too visible. You can attach the pine cone to the wreath using a “twist tie” method. Then I threaded some cranberries onto a piece of green wire and wrapped it around the wreath. The trick is to hide the green wire within the pine so that it’s not too visible, it blends really well so it’s not too much of a difficult trick! Also remember when adding your pine cones that things in 3’s are usually the best combo for design.

Ta Da! Your beautiful wreath is complete! You can now add a ribbon to your wreath so that you can hang it or you can place it on a table and add some candles.

Menorah

This is such an easy craft and great one to do with your kids. All the materials were purchased at Home Depot for a whopping total of $4. The wood was about 3 ft long and then cut into thirds. Home Depot will cut the wood for free for you if you’re doing less than 2 cuts. The copper candle holders are actually from the plumbing section and glued on with hot glue. I painted the wood white, however you could paint it any colour you want and add glitter and sparkles and all that jazz!

Fancy Present Wrapping!

Materials

Kraft Paper (dollar store)

Gingerbread men cut outs (dollar store)

Stencil (DeSerres)

Red Paint (DeSerres)

Sponge Brush (DeSerres)

Red Ribbon (dollar store)

Rhinestones (dollar store)

For this craft the Dollar Store (and DeSerres) is your new best friend! The first step is to wrap your present with the Kraft paper. The great thing about the Kraft paper is that it’s really light and easy to fold on the corners. I used  red paint and the sponge brush with the stencil. I used the sponge brush in a circular motion instead of  dabbing it as I find this spreads the paint more evenly. I then used some red ribbon and tied it around the present. I got rhinestone stickers from the dollar store and stuck them on the red ribbon. I used a gingerbread man as a card, I punched a hole in the top of his head (ha, that sounds funny) and tied him on with rafia. The pine was added as a finishing touch along with a pipe cleaner candy cane.

These little hanging signs were a great find at the Dollar Store. They came in a pack of 4 and I think they’re just perfect to add that finishing touch to a bottle of wine. I simply used the red paint, a sponge brush and some rhinestones and ta da, your hostessing gift just got taken to the next level!

Ornaments

A couple years ago we ran an ornament making workshop at Seasons and we made some really fun ornaments. The snow man was made out of wooden spools of thread, paint, felt and model magic. For his broom we took a a crafting twig and tied some rafia on the end of it. His hat was made out of model magic and we poked a hole through it so that he could be hung from a tree. His arms were made out of pipe cleaners. We used hot glue to stick all the parts together. I think he’s the cutest little snowman there ever was, but I’m a bit biased.

For Mr. & Mrs. Clause we used styrofoam balls that were covered in paper machee. Once the paper machee had dried we painted them and used cotton balls for hair, eyebrows and a beard. We made the glasses out of wire and glued on some googly eyes. The little hats were made out of felt and a pom pom.

If you have any questions about any of the crafts or would like to know about where to purchase some of the materials please feel free to email me at nikki@seasonsfamilycentre.com