Lists Yule Love: Homemade Holiday Decor

By Desiree Parker Thursday, December 15, 2011

Ho, ho, ho, the holidays are here! Likely you’ve already decorated the house, but there is no such thing as too much themed décor.

The kids will be home from school, and maybe some other family members will be around, so why not get together and make a few holiday decorations together to use this year, and for years to come? Look below for a completely biased list of items I would like to see in my home, and maybe you’ll get some ideas for your place, too.

If you have some ideas for handmade items readers can make themselves, please share them in the comments section so other readers can be dazzled and inspired.

Five holiday decorations to make at home:
1) There are thousands of ideas for kid-focused holiday items you can make at home, so let me share a family favorite that you can use for just about anything you can think of: salt dough. Here’s a link to the recipe, but this is a ubiquitous recipe that’s found in almost any craft book or website.

What to do with the dough? Start by having family members make ornaments that best describe them or their interests. Once these are painted, dated and signed they make for nice keepsakes. You can also take everyone’s creations, punch a hole on top and string them from a chain to decorate the mantle. This dough is great for making a centerpiece of figurines if you’ve really got a lot of time on your hands!

Cover the dough creation in paint when it’s dry and then use a sealant (I use Mod Podge) to keep it safe, and then store it in a plastic container. I found that if these ornaments touch one another or paper while stored, they can stick, so use wax paper to wrap them up until next year.

2) Build a real gingerbread house. I haven’t tried this one out on my family yet, but when I was a kid we made one once and it was the coolest thing ever. Maybe writing about this will inspire me to try it out!

This is another of those recipes that’s simple to find with a few flips through a cookbook or a Google search. Here’s a website I liked, just based on how easy the directions were to read.

Making a gingerbread house is another one of those things that can start a holiday tradition and it can really get everyone involved. It’s a great answer to one of the 500 “I’m bored” complaints you might hear leading up to the big Santa visit. Who knows? Maybe if you leave Santa a gingerbread copy of his house, he’ll reward you for your creativity.

Old sheet music or a stylish tree topper?

3) I have never tried making things out of pages of old books or magazines, but here’s one I want to try this year (from a list of crafty decoration ideas on HGTV: Marian Parsons of Mustard Seed Interiors used sheet music to make this tree topper. She twisted sheet music into cone shapes and hot glued them to a cardboard circle backing. You can also glue the cone-shaped pieces to a doughnut-shaped cardboard backing for a matching wreath.

4) If you’re looking to get back to nature a little bit, going for a nature walk can be a fun thing to do, and you can pick up decorating items along the way. Holly or other evergreen springs are nice to place across tables, mantles or in a vase. Let’s not forget that craft we’ve all done at school: adding paint or glitter to pinecones. There’s a reason this craft has been around forever – pinecones are just plain pretty!

5) Popcorn garlands anyone? There are lots of decorations you can make out of food in your house. String popcorn and dried cranberries together with a needle and thread, and you’ve got a pretty garland. Painted noodles work, too (yes, kids, they’re good for more than macaroni necklaces!), or maybe even marshmallows. Okay, those might make the thread a little sticky, but the point is you can be creative with this one, too.

There are tons more ideas out there than just these five, so get crafting!