Martha Moments: make your own Christmas decorations

We come across some very clever people when we do shop visits, and this week was no exception.

Over at Nom de Plume, co owner Pippa was busy putting up her home made Christmas star balls as window dressing. “They take about five minutes to make and are really easy, although one customer did come in and think we’d hung our dog up in the window (see Biba in her basket below, she does look a bit fluffy-ball like).

Pippa made these star balls by placing five layers of ordinary tissue paper together (A4 size is fine) and folding them up as if making a fan -concertina like. Secure the folded paper in the centre with string, cut the two ends into an angle (like you might do a ribbon to stop it fraying). Then fan the two sections open and gently pull each layer of paper up into a ball shape. Sounds complex but have a go, it’s easy and you will impress everyone with your Martha Stewert skills. You can then secure string (Pippa used nylon wire, which is almost transparent) around the centre tie and hang ’em around the house. Add a few silver baubles like Pippa for an extra Christmasy feel.

Then over at the Yellow Door press day in July (Mary Portas’s agency), our mate Hayley Mills created these eco friendly Christmas decorations from old books and bits of plank.

For the little Christmas trees, she used varying sized circles of cut out book paper (newspaper will work too but it’s a bit thin) to stick onto one of those spiky sticks you see used in offices to keep receipts and lose bits of paper on. I’m sure they have a technical name but you know what I mean. Use cookie cutter rings to cut the different circle sizes.The book Christmas trees are made from old books opened up at the spine and pages cut with a scalpel and fanned out to resemble a tree.  I also love her book-pile Christmas trees,

You can screw a cupboard knob at the top of the tree to hang presents/more baubles on. You could paint them green but they look great a bit rough & ready.

Check out Hayley’s blog for a few more ideas on a recycled Christmas. And don’t forget you could always do the Harrods fluffy ribbon bow we talked about back in July. Enjoy!