Posts Tagged ‘christmas decor’

Green Christmas Decor

Posted on December 21st, 2010 by Tonia 4 Comments

There’s only a few days left to deck the halls for Christmas!  We love the holidays around here, but what we don’t love is holiday decor.  Wait, let me be more specific: holiday decor that was made in China and sold at Wal-Mart/Target/the likes.  That breaks/goes out of style in a year.  That ends up in a landfill for eternity.  That kind of holiday decor sucks, and is not allowed in our home. 

Holiday decor that was passed down to us by friends and family: awesome!  Holiday decor that is easy to make ourselves, out of materials that will biodegrade in our compost this spring: WAY awesome!

Today we’re going to address the latter, because {channeling my inner Smokey the Bear} only YOU can prevent huge blow-up plastic Santas from entering the landfill!

For this project you need:

Scissors

Needle & thread

Small un-bleached coffee filters

Christmas spirit {not required, but highly recommended}

Step 1:

Fold a coffee filter in half, in half again, and in half one more time so that it is a triangle {with a rounded bottom edge, because it was a circle to begin with}

Cut small shapes into the sides of the triangle {if you never did this in second grade and you need more help, check this out}

Unfold to reveal your beautiful snowflake!  Repeat with as many coffee filters as you want.

Step 2:

Take your needle & thread, and poke a hoke through the top of a snowflake. 

Loop back around and poke through again, so the snowflake is danging from the thread securely.

Repeat with each snow flake, spacing them apart as much or as little as you like on the thread.

The result is a beautiful string of snowflakes that will flutter and spin prettily.  Hang in the window and enjoy the light coming through the thin paper.  Don’t forget to compost them afterwards!  The unbleached coffee filters are biodegradable.

But that’s not all…these same coffee filters can also be made into beautiful, fluffy little “flowers” for your Christmas tree, or for hanging around the house!  More on that coming soon!