Pretty Pomanders Gingerbread Houses Wrapping Romps Luminaries Advent Calenders

Pretty Pomanders

A wondrous scent!

Pomanders are lovely Christmas decorations that are as fabulous smelling as they are looking. Hang them in doorways, on the tree or anywhere else to create a festive atmosphere.

Materials:

Orange or lemon
Whole cloves
Needle
Ribbon

Use the needle to puncture a whole in the skin of the orange or lemon and insert a clove into the hole. Repeat this process until the entire fruit is covered in cloves, making sure the cloves touch one another. Tie a ribbon around your pomander and hang it up, or turn it into a centerpiece by placing it in a bowl of evergreens. A pomander can take a long time to make, but it makes a wonderful family project as everyone can have a turn and switching off often will make the work a lot of fun.

Visit our Sweden Activity Page for ideas on making Ginger Bread Houses.
Pattern for Ginger Bread House, Click Here. (printable version, pdf)

Making Giftwrap

Wrapping gifts doesn’t have to be one more dreaded thing on the to-do list. It can be a creative family endeavour, filled with fun. It also doesn’t have to be another sign of waste and landfill filling. It can be an adventure into natural materials and reusable items.

Try the following ideas for ecological wrapping romps:

1. Use recycled paper to wrap gifts in. If you can’t find any Christmas paper made from recycled products, try decorating brown packing paper. Each gift can become a work of art as you decorate the paper with stamps, stencils, crayons, paints, and/or pictures (cut up old Christmas cards).
2. Make fabric gift bags that can be reused from year to year. They can be as elaborate or as simple as you’d like. While parents and older children sew them, younger kids can decorate them. Having a gift bag for each member of the family to reuse every year is a wonderful tradition to start while kids are young – think of the paper that will be saved over the course of a lifetime of Christmases.
3. Make the wrapping part of the gift – use baskets, jars, tins, bowls, pails, chests, reusable boxes or whatever else you can think of to wrap the gift in.
4. Replace plastic bows and ribbons with natural materials. Think pinecones, cinnamon sticks, cranberries, evergreen branches, bits of holly, twigs, seashells, pressed leaves and flowers. Use fabric ribbons that can be reused rather than plastic ribbons and tie gift wrappings closed rather than using tape.
5. Gift tags can be made out of old Christmas cards, scraps of paper from the recycling bin or even little bits of bark or pressed leaves. If you use fabric bags, names can be printed right onto the fabric. If you use recycled brown packing paper, the names and holiday wishes can even be part of the decoration or pattern.

Candlelight delight

A great way to re-use metal food cans, these luminaries make gorgeous decorations to light up the long winter nights. Please note that you need to freeze water in the can before starting, so prepare for this activity a day ahead of time.

Materials:
Empty food cans (any size will do), labels removed and well washed
Pen and paper
2 rubber bands
Nail
Hammer
Cushion or blanket
Tea light candle

Step 1:

Fill the can about ¾ full of water and allow it to freeze solid either in the freezer or, if it’s cold enough, outside. Don’t fill it with water all the way as the expanding water may distend your can.

Step 2:

Plan a design for your luminary on paper. You can make it as elaborate or as simple as you wish – just remember that you will be tracing the design onto the can with a series of holes, so avoid intricate or detailed pictures.

Step 3:

Attach your design to the can, using the rubber bands to hold it in place. Using the cushion or blanket to soften the impact of the hammering, trace the design onto the can by puncturing it with the hammer and nail in intervals along the lines of your design.

Step 4:

Allow the ice to melt, empty the water and place a tealight candle in the bottom. And there you have it a fabulous little luminary made from recycled materials that will be a delight to all

Countdown to Christmas

With December just around the corner, this is a great time to make advent calendars for loved ones. A great calendar can be made for grandparents with each door opening to a picture of the grandkids in funny poses or with pictures from throughout the year.

Materials:
1 large piece of poster board paper (or cardboard from a box waiting to be recycled)
Construction paper
25 family photos
Scissors
Decorating Items: crayons, coloured pens, etc.
Little stickers/tape
Glue

Method:
Trim the photos and glue them in 5 rows of 5 pictures on the poster board paper. Space them evenly, with plenty of space in between each picture.

Cut out 25 pieces of construction paper, large enough to cover the pictures with a tab to attach it at the top. Place one number (1 through 25) on each sheet and decorate festively. Glue the construction paper just above the picture. It should reveal the photo when lifted from the bottom, but conceal it entirely when down. The numbers can be placed sequentially or shuffled so the recipient needs to hunt for them on the appropriate day. Now seal each picture at the bottom with a small sticker or a bit of tape to discourage peeking before it’s time.

Be sure to get the calendar to its intended recipient before December 1 st and give them instructions to open one window each day before Christmas.

Alternate Idea:
Hide messages instead of photos under the flaps – or combine the two.

For other ideas on Advent Calendars, visit our Sweden Page.

Visit our Store for Christmas Gift Giving from the Earthy Family Marketplace
Order your Christmas and Chanukah Wreaths, Arrangements, Bouquets and Centrepieces from ChristmasFlowersOnline.com