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News Flash!
News Flash!
The hectic holidays are upon us and we get so busy that we often forget to stop and enjoy the natural beauty of the changing season outdoors. One way to force yourself to breathe in some fresh fall air is to take a hike to collect things from nature to create inexpensive holiday decorations.
To create an autumn or Thanksgiving wreath start collecting the beautiful colored leaves that drop in your own back yard. Press them in a book for a few days (or if you're already crafty use a flower press or acid free paper). Cut a wreath shape out of some cardboard and take your handy dandy glue gun and go to town on arranging the colorful leaves, overlapping them to completely cover the cardboard wreath. Before you know it, you've created a fall decoration for pennies right from your own back yard.
One year I had a one by two feet piece of Plexiglas left over from another project. After spending an enjoyable fall afternoon with my 7 year old goddaughter collecting leaves, we came home and stared arranging them on a piece corrugated cardboard cut to one by two feet. Once we agreed on our arrangement we brought out the glue gun to secure them in place. After that I put the Plexiglas on top, which acted as a natural press. At Thanksgiving dinner I had a beautiful centerpiece that didn't have to be move to make room for food. Instead it remained throughout the meal and acted as a holiday hot pad to put the food on. The pride on my goddaughter's face all though dinner as guest complimented the idea was worth more than any store bought arrangement.
If you want to get fancier but still save money, you can go to any Walmart Super Center, you know the ones that also sell food, go to the craft section and buy either a Styrofoam or grapevine wreath and some dried flowers, then go to the produce section and buy some of those tiny 3" pumpkins and small gourds you find this time of year. After that take an autumn hike and collect colored leaves, pine cones, sprigs and twigs and anything else you may find that strikes you. When you get home, form a sturdy wire hanger into a loop and attach to the back of the wreath with wire or twist ties. Next, lay the wreath flat to start decorating it with some of the treasures you found and bought.
Attach the larger pieces first; these may require attachment with wire to tie them on to the grapevine or toothpicks to secure them into Styrofoam. After you've secured the larger decorations fill in the empty areas with the smaller pinecones, springs, dried flowers and leaves. You can use stickpins to attach these smaller items. You can also use a staple gun if you have one. On some of smaller pieces or the leaves a desk stapler may be enough to safely secure them, particularly on the Styrofoam.
Now you have a gorgeous holiday wreath for your door that your neighbors will think you paid a lot of money for at a craft fair.
For the Traditional Christmas Wreath you can do the same thing with your Styrofoam wreath and hanger. This time you can take clippings from the many varieties of coniferous trees in our area. Hemlock, Spruce, Pine or the like, whatever you have available to you, will work just fine. I've found that attaching these to Styrofoam is best accomplished by taking wire or even paper clips and unbending them to reshape them into "U's", sticking them around the small branches and twigs with the ends of the clips stuck into the Styrofoam. You can also use staples for securing the smaller parts of the branches as described earlier. A wreath with just pine tree branches is fine by itself with just a big red bow on the top or bottom of the wreath. You can jazz it up a bit more by adding pinecones, holly berries, tiny wrapped presents or even some small tree ornaments. You can't go wrong. The sky's the limit. Let your creative juices flow. You'd be surprise how relaxing it can be to just totally lose yourself in a natural project like this. When you're all done you'll feel pride in your creativity and thriftiness.
You can apply these same decorating items and techniques to other areas of your house such as covering your mantel with pinecones and pine branches. Try filling bowels with pinecones or small pumpkins and gourds and placing them throughout the house. Bringing nature indoors this time of year can sometimes brighten up the long dark winters.
By: Lisa Alexander
Certified Eco Broker
