Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Handmade Holiday

Photos by EV Photography

I am so excited to share with you today a few of my DIY tree decorations that I've been working on over my holiday break last week. My intentions for creating my tree decorations was this: Just because I'm on a limited budget doesn't mean that I can't craft up a few things to transform my space into feeling a bit more like Christmas. Not only was I able to use most of my own crafting supplies but I even had enough money to purchase a few boxed ornaments to complement all the DIY goodness! Below is a breakdown of resources and materials used to create the yarn ornaments, dot garland, and Christmas banner.

Paper Mache Yarn Ornaments:

Materials:

Paper Mache ornaments- 40 cents/each
Red and Green (multi colored) Yarn- $4
Red Rick Rack Ribbon ( in 1/2" and 1" widths)- owned
Elmers craft fabric glue- $3.27 (or any glue that dries clear)

All the materials for these ornaments were purchased at Hobby Lobby.
If you act fast you can even get the paper mache ornaments at 40% off! I stocked up
and purchased 12 to decorate my tree.

Total for 12 ornaments: $12.07

Instructions:

To decorate these I really just let me creativity take over and used the red and green yarn and rick rack sparingly. Just make sure to use a glue that dries clear, so if the yarn doesn't cover it you won't end up with white splotches of dried glue on the paper mache. I kept some of the paper mache exposed to keep with the handmade theme.
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Dot Garland

Materials:

Avery round 3/4" and 1" white round labels- $6.50/a pack
Monofilament fishing line (clear)- owned
Painter's Touch spray paint in Apple Red and Herbal Green- owned

I owned most of the supplies for this garland and purchased the labels at Staples.

Total cost: $13 for an endless (almost) amount of playful garland.

Instructions:

Place your labels on a covered surface and spray paint both sizes with spray paint. Make sure to leave some of them unpainted as well. Once they are dry, take two (of the same size) and stick them together in between a strand of clear fishing line. I repeated this mixing the red, green, and white labels leaving a few inches in between each other.

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Christmas banner

Materials:

Cotton cream strip of fabric- owned
Red acrylic paint-owned
Small paint brush-owned
Set of foam alphabet letters- owned

It's always exciting to come up with a project that costs you nothing! I just happened to have a large roll of this cotton fabric (about 4 inched wide) that I found for a dollar at the thrift store last year. The alphabet letter set I purchased at Micheal's. It comes with lower case and upper case letters. I ended up making about 15 feet of this using lines from Christmas songs.

Instructions:

I painted each letter using a small paint brush and red acrylic paint. And because each letter was hand stamped onto the fabric I ended up with some paint splotches around some of the letters, which I think just adds character. Set aside to dry and then hang! To give the banner some extra weight I taped a thin piece of wire on the back to better manipulate it's shape and placement on the tree branches.


I hope you enjoyed these DIY projects. I had fun creating them and now look forward to using them again next year! May your creativity be limitless!

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