Making Christmas Decorations
This is our first Christmas in our own house and while I’m not some Christmas freak, I intend to add little decor to celebrate the winter solstice season.
I am not going to buy a ton of shiny and tacky plastic crap or anything like that, I’m opting for natural materials and traditional crafts, along with some warm white lights.
I started with drying orange slices and stringing them together to be put on some of the windows, and individual ones to be added on the christmas tree later on. They are so beautiful when there is light behind them.
More hands on craft was to make gingerbread houses. I made a dough used for the cookies but made it harder and omitted the baking soda from the recipe so the pieces would hold their shape better.
I am not very patient nor good at making gingerbread houses but I think they really don’t need to be perfect. I trialled my dough by making tiny houses and used royal icing for the piping. I think they are pretty cute even though I only dabbled with the decor.
I still have plenty of dough left and I’ll make one bigger house (using an Ikea mold because I’m lazyyyy) and more smaller ones if there are leftovers. I might sacrifice some candies for the bigger house but I won’t waste too much resources on there because they are purely for decor and not for eating.
I still have conifer tree brances, cinnamon sticks, star anise and candles on my list of things to get for Christmas decor, and if I have time I could knit some traditional Christmas baubles. Oh and I definitely need to make ice lantherns now that it seems like the temperatures are starting to stay below zero consistantly.
I never really made gingerbread houses, but there were several winters where my future draftsman training was prophesied as I cut out cardboard forms for cookie houses. Icing attached cheap candy, cookies, and crackers to my framework. I wish Tannerite had existed then. It would have made for a much more entertaining after-Christmas disposal process!
Designing and cutting out the templets is the annoying part so you were almost there!
Hmm, that is a great idea, I need to tell the man that we should go to the range and shoot out all the tiny houses 😝
I have one of those dehydrator things. I never thought of doing orange slices like that. Looks fab, might try it with lemon too!
All citrus fruits will look great! Do you use the dehydrator for beef jerky? We are just about to make some this weekend, I’m waiting for the meat to thaw so I can cut and marinade it.
I have only ever used it for chillies as it is quite a slow thing and let's them keep their amazing colour instead of going all dark. Beef jerky is a great idea though!
ohh really nice :)
I ike the bite size ginger houses :-D
When I saw the dehydrator, all I thought of was deer/moose jerky. I think I remember you writing about it in the past.
Then, when I saw the piping bag ... I wondered whether someone who used to work in the food industry and who also has a flair for knitting with good control of her tensions ... Would she have rock-star piping skills?
It's too early to tell. But I'm going to guess Yes.
:-)
I'm a Hallowe'en person, but my wife is a Christmas person so there is some level of balance. So, this weekend, my "only" job will be to bring the decorations up from the basement. She'll happily spend the day decorating the house with ornaments.
Your memory fails you, I’ve never made beef jerky before.
I wasn’t a confectioner and I make cakes very very rarely so my piping skills suck!
Is there a whole month of both Halloween and Christmas in your household and do you fight to get more days? 😁
Never made jerky??? If you like jerky from the bag, it is 10 times better when you make it yourself.
I'd be surprised if your piping actually sucked. Your tensions are excellent in your knitting (as seen through the internets) - so I just assumed....
Hallowe'en lasts about a week. But Christmas usually fills the house from Dec 1 until Jan 2. It's very rare that the tree is still up after the new year.
Turns out, I don’t like jerky 😂😅 Tasted too much like meat and iron, not a fan. The man liked it a lot though so my teriyaki seasoning was good enough I guess.
Knitting and piping require very different kind of tension and hand movement. I’m sure I could be great at piping too if I did it for 20 year aswell but I have no interest 😂
It's so much nicer to have natural or hand made decorations. Christmas is a commercial concept mostly and I'm not one to fill my house with shiny rubbish made in China.
Also, I have a dehumidifier...but I use mine to dry my brass after it's been tumbled (cleaned) in my Rebel 17 stainless steel media wet-tumbler. 😏
I don’t mind gifts, I love gifts, but the ugly colourful crap that is what I don’t understand why people buy into.
Dehumidifier turns out to be a lot more versatile gadget than what I thought!
Gifts are nice, thoughtful ones.
Yeah, it's much faster than air-drying and I don' like putting my brass in the oven (very low hear) to dry them. So, I array them in the dehumidifier, set and forget. I usually tip them into a clean towel and first and get the excess water off, but once that dehumidifier gets going they're bone dry in no time flat!
Here's some 9mm brass going through the process.
I’m sure my man will do the same now too since I threw away his airfryer he previously used for drying those things 😂
So easy, yet so creative! Even though I've seen these all over the place being sold especially at Christmas Markets, I never realized how easy it is to make them on your own. Thank you for sharing ideas! :)
Definitely not worth paying for when it’s so easy and cheap to do it yourself. And if you don’t own a dehumidifier you can use the oven at a very low temperature, it’s a bit annoying but works just fine too.
Edit: I don’t actually know which diy project you meant, the oranges or gingerbread houses? 😅
Both :) I loved the results equally. And it's good to know that it works even in the oven. Thank you for sharing the tip! :)