Christmas time is here and boy oh boy am I excited! For many years I worked as a hairdresser, which meant that Christmas time was always tarnished by long work days and listening to clients complain about their busy Christmas schedules. However, the last 4 years, I’ve been living in France and working full time on my blog. I’ve been able to really make the most of Christmas time in Paris and I’ve well and truly come to love this time of year. To be completely honest, I actually like the lead up to Christmas more than the actual day itself. Visiting Christmas markets, shopping for gifts, seeing the unveiling of Christmas displays along boulevard Haussmann, these activities fill me with more joy than the actual goings-on of Christmas day.
This year, I’ve been very lucky to have an addition Christmas activity, decorating my enormous Balsam Hill Christmas Tree. This gorgeous tree was gifted to me a few weeks ago and I’ve been a very busy bee making handmade decorations for it ever since. The tree itself is stunning and quite realistic so I didn’t want to overwhelm it with too many decorations. It also comes with the lights already attached which is a major relief. Untangling and attaching your own lights always seems to ruin a bit of the fun when decorating your tree (let’s face it, there’s always a few lights that never work) so it was a relief that they were already attached and only needed to be plugged in.
I prepared 3 DIY Christmas tree ornaments inspired by my Balsam Hill Christmas tree. They’re all super easy to make but visually, very striking. They are kid-friendly activities so your little ones can always give you a helping hand.
If you make one of these ornaments be sure to tag me in your photos on Instagram as I’ll repost everyone’s creations in my Stories.
MULTI-COLOURED POMPOMS
Start but cutting two donuts out of cardboard, then cut a slit into the centre of the circles.
Place the two cardboard circles together and start wrapping your wool around a small section of it. If you want a lot of this colour on your pompom continue to wrap it around quite a large section. If you want only a small amount, wrapping it around 1 or 2cm of the cardboard will be enough. Once it’s quite thick, cut the wool, and start the next colour. Continue this process until the cardboard is covered in a thick layer of all the different colours of wool.
Place your scissors in between the two pieces of cardboard and cut the wool, then take a piece of wool, slide it in between the two cardboard circles and tie it firmly in a double knot.
Remove the cardboard and trim the pompom so it’s perfectly round.
BAKED PRETZEL ORNAMENTS
Make a salt dough by combining 2 cups (140g) of flour, ½ cup (150g) of salt and ¾ of a cup of water. Mix well, then kneed until a smooth dough forms. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface. Use a cookie cutter (like this one), to cut out as many pretzel ornaments as possible. Place on a tray lined with baking paper and bake at 150°C for 1 hour, then allow pretzels to slowly cool and dry out in the oven. Once cool, paint with acrylic paint, then use pink string to tie it to your Christmas tree.
EUCALYPTUS ORNAMENTS
Trim some sprigs of eucalyptus into 5 to 10cm pieces (I used eucalyptus that’s been tinted red). Tie them together using cotton, then tie on the star ornament. Attach them to your Christmas tree using the cotton.
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