Handmade Holiday Crafts, part 2

Yesterday, I shared the first installment of my “I went crazy and did a whole bunch of Christmas crafts” series. Today, I wrap it up with a couple of projects that I actually had to leave my house and, therefore, put on real pants to get supplies for. Life is so hard when you have to put on proper human clothes to go out in public.

My first project was a Christmas wreath to go on our front door. No matter if said wreath has not yet made it to the door, it still looks fun and pretty.

I’d already perfected my yarn-wrapping skillz a couple of weeks ago on my “ER project,” so I knew wrapping a circular 10” foam wreath form would be cake compared to completing that cardboard “R.” While fairly simple, it was slightly tedious – all in all, it took about an hour and a half to wrap the thing completely. From there, it was easy: I picked out a few coordinating Christmassy ribbons and wrapped a band of each around the right side of the wreath.

Then, I attached some sparkly wreath embellishments to the wreath, and covered up how I bound them with some big, red pom-pom balls. Just to make things a bit more whimsical, I fashioned a little peppermint swirl out of a candy-cane-striped pipe cleaner. The pom-poms and pipe cleaner were all affixed with hot glue.

I didn’t really have a set plan when I sat down to work on this project – I just kept adding things as I went and was happy with the finished product.

My final project was inspired by a holiday decoration I saw in a store somewhere and I thought, “Hey, I could make that!” Two happy, puffy Christmas trees made from different-sized pom-poms.

I started out with two Styrofoam cones (found in the floral arrangement department at craft stores) – one large, one small. I started applying the pom-poms by painting on tacky glue to the cone and then pressing the pom-poms on, but they didn’t adhere to the Styrofoam cones at all. So I did the totally non-ghetto thing and grabbed a couple sheets of plain printer paper and stapled them around the cones.

The pom-poms stuck so much better to the paper.

The project was really simple (a small child could do this one easily), but just took some patience. When I finished the larger tree, I decided it needed a topper, so I just cut out a star from yellow construction paper, painted it with glitter, attached it to a toothpick and stuck that to the top of the tree. It’s not the classiest topper, but until I make a felted yellow star to set on top, it will do for now.

These trees are a perfect not-so-serious decoration to add a little fun around the house. If I had a mantel, I’d definitely stick these on top. Since our home is mantel-less, these trees have taken a tour of the house between sitting on our coffee table, a side table and their current residence atop our dining table. Who knows where else they’ll end up this season!

So, there you have it. Between yesterday and today’s posts, there are five easy, cheap Christmas decorations you can knock out on a weekend. No excuse for spending loads of money on decorations when you can make them yourself!

What crafts have you tackled this holiday season? Do you have a favorite Christmas craft of all time? When I was in kindergarten, I made an ornament tying frayed yarn around a jar cap ring to create a fluffy wreath and thought it was the coolest craft ever. It still hangs on my parents’ tree every year!