Five festive DIY decorations

Christmas decorating can become costly and often falls to one person in the family to do. Here are some ideas to make the process of adding that special touch a family event.

Salt dough ornaments: There are plenty of recipes on the Internet to make salt dough and you can use these to create handmade ornaments for your Christmas tree. Why not do hand- or footprints of your children and use them as gifts for the grandparents?

Sugar cookie ornaments: This a two-in-one treat for you and the children! Spend the day making sugar cookies and pick out a few to use as Christmas tree decorations. Remember to make a hole so that you can string it up and hang it.

Christmas pom-poms: Find any wool lurking in the back of your hobby cupboard and teach the family how to make pom-poms. You can play around with different colours and sizes.

Scrap ribbon tree ornament: Send the children out looking for sticks that are fairly straight. Get some scraps of material and tie them onto the sticks one at a time until most of it is covered, except for a small part at the base of the “tree”. Cut the ribbons so that it resembles a Christmas tree en hang it up. Voila!

Bottle cap snowmen: Save some of the bottle caps from your drinks and stick three of them directly underneath one another to a piece of ribbon that has been folded in half. Now the kids can decorate the snowmen and give them a little scarf with a small piece of scrap fabric.