My Christmas tree is a collection of everything from the last 20 years and is now growing with handmade decorations made at school! Some people like to change their decorations yearly, they even have colour schemes! Oh to have a colour scheme, I try, then turn my back for a second and everything we’ve ever bought has been literally thrown on the tree by my family. I now officially give up and embrace the colour explosion.
For those of you who like to change it up a bit though, there are so many ways to recycle and upcycle your old ones so you’re not buying new each year. I’ve been exploring upcycled Christmas baubles and ways to turn old ones into lovely new ones.
You can use old baubles that have lived in the dusty corner of the loft for years, let’s face it we all have those, or I’ve found that charity shops and thrift stores often have a huge selection to choose from. My local St Oswalds store had a whole room full of old decorations, tinsel, old fashioned baubles and even fully decorated trees that people had donated in January.
This is a recent haul of baubles, they were boxed and almost brand new! It never ceases to amaze me the things people give away. So armed with coloured jute from my favourite shop RE in Corbridge, fabric remnants donated from Pier74 and my collection of ribbons I headed to Belsay Hall’s Festive Gift Fair to run 2 days of workshops for the visitors.
Here are a few more examples of old baubles turned into lovely new ones from the workshops at Belsay Hall. The string wrapped ones are really easy. Simply cover the bauble in double sided tape then just wrap the string or jute around neatly starting at the top, then use a dab of glue on the bottom at the end, either with pva or a glue stick. You can add buttons or ribbons for some nice coordinating details.
The simplest update has to be these fabric wrapped baubles. So simple and so lovely!
The burlap bauble – simple how-to
The things you’ll need: one medium sized bauble, a piece of burlap around 12 inch square or any other material if you have any remnants, one loom band, twine, and a piece of ribbon.
First of all, tie a new hanging loop with the twine. Next, wrap the burlap around the baubles, neatly folding it around as you go, use the loom band to secure, these are basically tiny elastic bands if you can’t get your hands on loom bands. (My house has approximately 2.5million of them at my last count).
Tie the ribbon around in a nice bow bow or knot of your choice and finally trim the excess burlap to finish neatly, remembering to keep the hanging loop to the side and not cut through it!
Such a simple update and really on trend with the burlap and red ribbon. Very Nordic. The same method also works with fabric remnants too.
Over the course of the weekend we upcycled around 200 baubles that would have probably ended up in landfill otherwise. Everyone made something unique and children and grown ups alike spent time crafting and relaxing. The perfect therapy.
Merry Christmas! xx
All round creative junkie 