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Just for fun

Homemade Christmas decorations

Laura Foulger
Laura Foulger
Features Writer
Created 8 December 2023 | Edited 12 November 2024

Have yourself a merry homemade Christmas and take inspiration from the DIY exploits of MSE HQ and friends. By making their own wreaths, baubles, cards and other decorations using foraged or recycled materials, these MoneySavers cut down on a little of the waste and a lot of the expense of Christmastime. (And it's fun too.)

We want to see your DIY creations. Pop a photo or two in the Show me your homemade Christmas decorations Forum discussion.

Once you've whet your appetite, continue the festive frugality with our 44 Christmas MoneySaving tips guide and our 20 free (or very cheap) ways to sprinkle some Christmas magic blog.

❄️ Snowflake it 'til you make it ❄️

Paper doily snowflakes are fun, quick and fool proof. Fold up plain paper into a thin triangle, cut shapes into it and unfold. The trick to making a really detailed one is cutting into it as much as possible. Crack out the hole punch too, if you've got one. Once they're done you can stick them to your window panes or hang them from the ceiling with white thread.

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The reindeer silhouette is made from black foam (originally packing material saved from an online order). My partner Stuart and I found an image online to use as a template, then taped the foam cut-out to our (existing) moon light.

Below are Ex-MSE Laura B's paper snowflakes. Displayed on the window, they look awesome in contrast when it's dark outside. When making your own snowflakes, try to make them as varied as possible by cutting out different shapes in each one, and starting with a smaller 'pizza slice' to make teeny snowflakes as well as big'uns.

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🪵 Wood you look at that 🪵

The more ambitious craftsperson may like to take a leaf out of MSE Ruby's book. Her homemade Christmas tree is made from scavenged pieces of wood and requires some woodworking skill. The result is a unique and high-end looking piece that's built to last.

A two-picture collage of a homemade Christmas tree constructed from pieces of wood and strung with fairy lights

In her own words, here's how it's done:

What you’ll need: Saw, four screws, drill, tree branches, curtain pole/metal pole/rod, wooden batten, stanley knife

To make the tree:

  1. Pick your favourite place to walk with lots of trees and wrap up warm.

  2. Embark on your winter walk making sure to be on the look out for fallen tree branches. Collect several branches chunky enough to drill a hole in (0.5cm depending on the size of your pole).

  3. Once you’ve collected enough for the size of the tree you’d like to make, head home, and make sure all your branches are left to dry.

  4. You’ll then need to cut the branches using a saw, to suitable lengths. They’ll need to decrease in size (mine ranged from 45cm – 10cm). They will be your Christmas tree branches.

  5. Depending on the diameter of your pole, you’ll need to drill into the middle of the branch when it’s laid lengthways, making sure the hole is big enough so that it can be slotted onto a pole. The hole can be drilled either in the middle of the branch, or almost in the middle depending on whether you’d like your Christmas tree to be neater or messier (I like the organized mess look).

  6. Using one of the thinner branches (not too thin), you’ll need to cut it into disks about 1.5cm thick with your saw (which you’ll be using to layer in between each branch).

  7. Drill into the middle of the cross section of each disk creating the same size hole as you have on the other branches.

  8. Depending on your desired look, sand the prepared branches to however smooth you’d like them.

To make the stand:

  1. Cut two pieces of batten the same length (mine were about 50cm but it will depend on the size of your tree – it will need to be long enough to create a sturdy base).

  2. On the first piece, drill a hole all the way through the wood in the middle, the same diameter as the other holes you’ve drilled.

  3. On the second piece, start to drill in the middle of the batten, but don’t drill all the way through.

  4. Using the spare batten, saw two small square pieces of wood. Leave the width the same as the other piece of batten so they line up when stacked.

  5. On the piece of batten that has a hole drilled all the way through, screw the pieces of square wood to either end.

  6. The two pieces will be stacked on top of each other to create a cross shape. The piece with the square attachments goes on top.

  7. Insert the pole through the stacked pieces of batten where the holes are aligned.

To assemble:

  1. Start to slot and stack the branches, starting with the longest pieces. After each branch, stack a disk, starting with the thickest. Repeat this step until you get to the top of the pole.

  2. If you want a pointed top, find a thinner branch and drill a hole so that you can put it at the top of the pole. To make it pointy, file it down with a stanley knife.

  3. Put the pointed branch at the top of the tree and get decorating! I like to wrap fairy lights tightly round the branches.

🧶 No way crochet 🧶

MSE Helen K, MSE Bernadette and Angelique attended a crochet workshop and came away with these delicately curling snowdrift decorations in different coloured yarn.

For more inspiration, visit the Cross Stitch and Craft Café 2024 thread on the MSE Forum.

A collage of four images of crochet snowdrift decorations in white and grey

🏷️ Tag: you're it 🏷️

In a move that's simultaneously MoneySaving, eco-conscious and creative, MSE Jenny H makes gift tags out of old Christmas cards. She cuts them out with pinking shears to give the zigzag edge, and threads them with ribbon.

Two Christmas gift tags made from recycled Christmas cards, cut with pinking shears

🎀 Good g'wreath! 🎀

The left-hand wreath is the handiwork of Ex-MSE Stephen B and his wife. All the foliage was free and foraged from her workplace. The right-hand wreath was handmade by one of MSE Clare's friends.

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Just about every year, Ex-MSE Carol and her daughters make a Christmas garland (pictured below left) using leftover bits from the Christmas tree. They forage ivy and pine cones, and glue the whole shebang onto a piece of string. "You can also get tree bits from your local garden centre for free," she says. The elegant door wreath pictured below right is one Ex-MSE Rhiannon whipped up a few years ago. Made out of offcuts from her garden, it was 100% biodegradable.

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🌟 Decks the halls like Holly 🌟

Ex-MSE Holly spotted garlands online costing £30 for 1.8 metres. She'd have needed five of them to deck out her stairs, and there was no way she was paying £150 for the privilege, so she bought the separate components and made her own. The breakdown looks approximately like this:

  • Almost 9 metres of garland – £17.97

  • 4 boxes of lights from B&M – £16

  • Decorations – roughly £25

    Total = £58.97

By going all Blue Peter on the task, she saved herself £91.

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🎄 Tree-mendous effort 🎄

MSE Bernadette is a skilled craftsperson and likes to make things for friends and family. Here are a few of the things she's magicked up over the last few years, all of which she says cost practically nothing but her time.

The large-scale standing tree is made from pallet wood and required a lot of sawing, sanding, staining and buffing. As for the '12 Days of Christmas' ornaments, Bernadette got the inspiration from similar items on Etsy.

Most of these double up as gift ideas too.

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🎁 Wrap party 🎁

This incredibly professional-looking bauble was made by Ex-MSE Rebecca at an art café. She bought the plain ceramic piece and decorated it herself, then handed it over to staff to be glazed and fired. Now it's pride of place on the Christmas tree.

Rebecca's also a dab hand at making her own wrapping paper. The bottom set of images show the plain brown parcel paper she bought last year and embellished with Christmas washi tape. The paper is the cheapest you can get and the washi tape was a pack of 10 designs from Amazon, so she has plenty left over for this year."The tape is also perfect to close envelopes for Christmas cards instead of licking them, " she says, "and they make your envelope look fancy shmancy".

For more ideas, see Ex-MSE Rhiannon's Wrapping presents sustainably blog.

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🦶 Mistle-toes and more 🦶

As well as the door wreath earlier, MSE Clare's friends and family members have made all manner of  DIY Christmas decorations and gifts over the years. A few of them are pictured here, including:

  • Painted tin can plant pots (for planting Christmas poinsettia, perhaps)

  • Kids' hand and footprint cards

  • Personalised wooden bauble

  • Large wooden Christmas tree

clare-decorations.png

🕯️ Be a little Advent-urous 🕯️

Kudos to MSE Lea's boyfriend, who whipped up a bespoke Advent calendar for her. So far she's opened doors containing a candle, gin, anti-bac, chocolate, sweets, a voucher for a massage and a 'free pass' voucher that lets her choose a piece of furniture for their new flat that she loves (and he hates).

homemade-advent-calendar.png

🎨 I didn't know you card 🎨

The snowman card on the left was made at school by a young friend of MSE Sarah Monro. "I've kept it in my decorations box," says Sarah, "I'm going to keep putting it up on display until she's 18."Sarah's brother's girlfriend created the card on the right. Every year she knits little Christmas decorations and turns them into cards.

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Then there's my artistic friend Sophie, who paints Christmas designs, adds appropriately festive puns, then scans and prints several copies onto card to create Christmas cards. How good are these?

sophie-homemade-xmas-cards.png

🎄 Incredi-bauble 🎄

My creative pal Chloe makes her own Christmas tree baubles and they look really high-end. She buys polystyrene balls from Hobby Craft for the base and pushes dressmaking pins into them. Each pin holds a bead and a sequin. She uses a longer pin to attach a ribbon. It takes ages, Chloe says, but she has fun doing it.

chloe-homemade-bauble.png

📚 Fifty Shades of Sleigh 📚

10/10 for effort here. This book-based Christmas tree was created at MSE Tony's wife's workplace. It could double up as a giant game of Jenga.

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🍾 Gin-gle bells 🍾

If you've mastered homemade Christmas decorations, maybe it's time to level up and attempt a homemade Christmas tipple. Ex-MSE Carol's sister makes her own sloe gin, limoncello, bourbon and more, which she keeps in recycled glass bottles. Sometimes, if Carol's been very good, she gets a bottle as a present.

For further inspo, visit the 'Make Your Own Christmas Booze' thread on the Forum.

Always be Drinkaware.

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Ahead of Christmas, MSE Sarah Monro turns plain gin into sloe gin. She combines three ingredients (gin, sloe berries and sugar) in jars and leaves them to marinate until they're ready. The berries infuse the liquid with colour and flavour.

There are heaps of other options for making your own flavoured gin by replacing the sloe berries with things like rhubarb, plums, apple, mulling spices or rosemary, or even a combination of complementary ingredients.

sarah-homemade-gin.png

From the craftspeople of MSE HQ, have a very happy homemade Christmas.

MSE Forum

Show us your homemade Christmas decorations

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