Christmas Crafts and Sustainable Swaps For The Holidays
Fancy a do-it-yourself Christmas? From up-cycled Christmas jumpers to handmade Christmas cards, we’ve got lots of easy crafts for this festive season, which are not only fun to make but help you and your family have a more sustainable Christmas. We’re all getting a little more eco-friendly, so as well as shopping more consciously at this time of year you can also DIY some decorations and craft some homemade Christmas gifts.
Make A DIY Christmas Jumper
We all love a Christmas jumper, from the traditional to the quirky, did someone say singing jumper? But it’s all too tempting to pick up a new one each year from your local supermarket or high street brand, which can be costly and very wasteful if only worn once. But don’t worry, we can help you with your DIY Christmas jumper this year. Earlier in the year we launched our Re:Uniform campaign, encouraging families to love, fix or swap their school uniform instead of buying brand new. With Christmas fast approaching we decided to give it a festive glow up….introducing ‘Re:Uniform does Christmas’. We ditched the store-bought versions this year and tried our hands at some Christmas jumper crafts instead. Simply grab your old David Luke sweatshirt, if you’ve not already donated it or handed it down, some tinsel, pom poms, bits of other fabric, ribbons, basically anything you have laying around the house and get creative. Try not to buy anything new, but if you really need to, try shop small and pick up some festive iron on transfers. These are perfect for covering any classroom stains that the jumper has suffered. Why not try these Christmas jumper crafts with school friends and each year swap them, meaning you have a different homemade Christmas jumper each year.DIY Santa Sack
We worked with Ministry of Craft (link to Ministry of craft) on our Summer Re:Uniform campaign to help you up cycle your old school sweatshirts into PE bags. But we reckon it’s just as easy to use the same tutorial (link to tutorial on our website) to create your own DIY Santa Sack. Swap the ribbon ties for tinsel and add some of your festive iron on transfers from your DIY Christmas jumpers and you have yourself the perfect Santa sack, use it to pop resents in or as an alternative to Christmas stockings.Homemade Christmas Decorations
Bored of the same Christmas ornaments year in, year out? Then it’s time to dust off your glue gun, grab some string and get crafty. Making homemade Christmas decorations not only means you have fun new ornaments for your tree but it’s a great kid friendly activity to kick off the festive season. Our SEO & paid media campaign specialist, Julia, had a go at her own Christmas DIY crafts, with these scandi inspired tree decorations. Using card, tissue paper and coloured string she already had in the house, she followed this online ‘How to’ guide to create the below origami inspired designs. You could even scavenge some bits from the garden, grab some twigs and twine to make some creative shapes, such as stars. Prefer traditional? Then look no further than salt dough decorations , you can’t get more retro than that.Eco Friendly Christmas Wrapping Paper
It’s probably the worst waste offender, but we all need it at this time of year, wrapping paper! It’s important to check your purchasing eco-friendly wrapping paper, make sure it’s recycled and recyclable, most have clear messaging on them. Eco wrapping paper doesn’t just need to be bought though, you could also try some of these eco-friendly wrapping paper alternatives…- Reusable fabric Wrap – feeling experimental? Why not try the Japanese tradition of furoshiki fabric wraps. Have a look around for some fabric you already have access too, maybe you could cut up some old cushion covers or curtains, cut them into squares of different sizes and follow this guide and get folding. Your recipients can re-use them or pop them in the wash and use again next year.
- Newspaper & calendars – using last weeks newspaper or the past 11 months calendar pages can make for a fun and quirky wrapping paper.
- Make fabric gift bags – a bit more technical than other options but you could personalise the bags meaning the wrap itself becomes part of the present and absolutely no paper or tape is involved. Our DIY Santa sacks could be perfect for this, you could make them bigger or smaller depending on the gift size.
Homemade Christmas Cards
Make your Christmas greetings handmade and extra personal this year with these DIY Christmas cards.- Finger painting – fun and messy, see what festive scenes you can create with your colourful fingerprints. Try recreating fairy lights or use thumb prints to create reindeers.
- Lace & ribbon – perfect for those that have a big sewing box. Pick your favourite lace and design a beautiful Christmas tree.
- Buttons – You’ve created your lace Christmas tree card, now add some colourful buttons as baubles. Not a fan of the lace tree? Then use your buttons as just baubles, add a few pen strokes and you’ve got some retro baubles. This is perfect for those spare buttons that you’ve collected over the years.
- Wreath Christmas Card – cut up some sprigs of rosemary and arrange it as a mini wreath on your card, it’s inexpensive, looks classy and will smell great.
