Making Recycled Christmas Decorations

Making recycled Christmas decorations can be a lot of fun.

Much more fun than going to the store and popping a bunch of overpriced decorations into your shopping cart that will be nothing but landfill and garbage in a few short weeks.

A big part of the Christmas season that we all look forward to is giving our home a face lift with decorations, lots of Christmas colour and all the trimmings.  

At first thought, we often browse the stores to buy new, but new items are not the only ones that shine and make an impression on visitors. 

As a matter of fact, walking into a home full of homemade decorations is always a special occasion, and even better if they are made from recycled materials.

With a little imagination and for thought, there are a lot of items that can be reused for creative decorations. 

CHRISTMAS CARDS 

We get them and after the holiday is over we throw them away. 

Instead of throwing them away, use them to make new decorations.

Christmas cards can be used to create an interesting surface almost anywhere you would like to do some sprucing up. 

1 – Have a piece of glass cut to fit the surface. 

2 – Underneath the glass place a piece of thin cardboard the same size

3 – Cover it with the fronts of various Christmas cards or you can even use fancy wrap that you love.

4 – Cover with the glass being sure that the edges are not sharp.

OLD ORNAMENTS 

Old ornaments that wear out and lose their paint can be given a new look with some non-toxic paint and some string, yarn or ribbon. 

Instead of throwing them away, come up with other ideas to save them like covering with ribbons, colored buttons, or sea shells. You can make some stunning and unique family decorations this way.

Color them with holiday paint and create ornaments, candle holders, and wreath accessories.

LIGHT BULBS 

Even used light bulbs can be turned into ornaments.  Cover a light bulb with a brown sock or stretchy material. 

Fashion ears out of felt and use felt pieces for eyes, nose, and mouth and you’ve got a reindeer ornament.  Tie a string around the top to secure the brown fabric and make a second loop to hand the ornament on the tree.

Light bulbs paint up nicely too, you can paint them brown and paint a face on them, using googly eyes and pipe cleaners. 

Of course, anything glass and breakable such as light bulbs need adult supervision and to be placed were little hands can't get to them – and you need to be careful with them yourself. 

START COLLECTING NOW 

Collecting items to decorate can start at any time during the year.

Soda cans, bottles, and cardboard boxes can be used to make ornaments for Christmas. 

You’d be amazed at the wonderful things that can be made from a little creativity and imagination from items most people have thrown away. 

SCRATCHED CD DISKS 

Scratched CDs can be turned into Christmas tree ornaments.

Collect pine cones, nuts, sand, and broken tree branches. 

The tree branches can be weaved together to form a natural wreath decorated with yarn, ribbon or anything of your choosing. 

Sand can be glued to almost anything to give it texture and a decorative look.

Pieces of discarded wood from household projects can be fashioned into nativity scene figures, crosses, wooden angels, and toys by someone who is skilled in wood working. 

Before you throw out what appears to be useless ornaments and Christmas cards, think about how they can be reused for another year of celebration. 

Get the kids involved and turn the quest for recycled materials into a treasure hunt through the house.

One word of warning: while it's always nice to reduce, reuse and recycle, especially during the Christmas season, one of the most wasteful seasons of the year, if it's really junk, get rid of it.

If you can't truly make anything that you will love from the items you collect, get rid of them.

Junk is junk.

But don't let that stop you from having a whole lot of fun with your kids and some recycled treasures. 

IS CHRISTMAS GETTING AWAY ON YOU? 

There is always so much to do during the Christmas Season that it can easily get out of hand.

I found myself awake one morning at 3 am stressing and worrying about what I had to do.

I realized that part of the stress was that I didn't even know what I needed to do?

So I got up and created my Big Christmas List.

After I made it, it occurred to me that you might need some help too, so I put it on a printable file and have made it available as a Queen of KAOS Christmas freebie.

Join the list and get a bunch of other stuff to help you stay organized and recycled this Christmas :0)

Get your Big Christmas List.