We’re only a few days away from Christmas. And while your tree is up and oven working overtime, if you are looking to spruce up your home without spending too much, here are some easy DIY options.
Mason jar lanterns and vases
Got empty jam jars lying around? You could re-purpose them into candle holders. Take off the lid, apply some craft glue around the jar and wrap them in red or white lace. Drop in a tea-light candle and you’ve made yourself a lovely DIY center piece for your table.
Love candy canes? Wrap masking tape at intervals around your glass jar. Paint the exposed parts with white acrylic. Coat it again. Once it dries, take off the masking tape and paint these exposed parts with red acrylic paint. Apply another coat and place an LED tea-light inside it.
If you love spray painting, take a few glass jars onto your balcony. Ensure they are clean and dry and that your project is undertaken with newspapers placed underneath your jars. Use red, gold, silver, and white spray paints on four glass jars respectively. Once they dry, tie a bow around the neck with burlap twine and you could place some red and gold artificial ferns and reeds in them to decorate your mantelpiece.
MDF Alphabet Signs
At a craft/stationery store, pick up large MDF alphabets (Alternatively, you could make these out of old cardboard boxes, although they might not be as strong, or even with thermocol). You could choose to make signs that read ‘LOVE’,’ JOY’, ‘PEACE’ or ‘NOEL.’ Use sandpaper to prime your alphabets and you could paint on them after. Add some glitter dust to jazz up your signage. You could either stick the alphabets together on a gold ribbon or make individual loops with ribbon, using a hot glue gun, and peg them up on individual nails.
Washi tape candles
If you’ve got tea-light candles to spare, visit your local craft store and ask for Christmas themed washi tapes (if they are out of stock, simply go for bold colours such as red, green, and gold). All you’ve got to do is wrap washi tape around your tea-light candle and stick it in place.
Ice cream stick ornaments
Since your kids are perhaps on holiday, you could get them to do a fun and easy craft project with you. To make a reindeer ornament out of ice cream sticks, cut out a triangular piece of brown paper/cardboard. Using fevicol, stick three ice cream sticks along the three sides of the paper/cardboard. For the eyes, cut out two small white paper circles. Draw a much smaller black circle in the middle of each of the white circles and stick them onto the paper/cardboard. For the nose, stick on a small red pom-pom at the apex (here, the bottom of the triangle) where two ice cream sticks meet. On the reverse side of the opposite end (just above the eyes), make a loop in the centre with ribbon and a hot glue gun. And you have a new Rudolph ornament to hang on your tree.
To make ice-cream stick Christmas trees, again, stick together three Popsicle sticks to form a triangle. Paint them green. Add glitter glue on different spots, and you have a shiny little tree to adorn the actual one.
Mini canvas ornaments
Buy a few mini square shaped canvas panels from a stationery store. Make sure you have oil-based paint markers in different colours. So for example, if you want to make a Santa-suit ornament, using a gold/yellow marker, draw the buckle (a thick rectangle) in the middle of the canvas. Then using a black marker, draw in the belt and make sure to fill up even the white space inside of the rectangular buckle. Using oil/acrylic colours, paint the rest of the canvas red. With some jute twine and a hot glue gun, make a loop to hang up your Santa suit ornament. You could get innovative and even make ornaments such as a snowman, snowflake, or even gingerbread man.
