apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I made ribbon stars for my tree last year - I purchased grosgrain ribbon, but if you have long fabric pieces you could trim them to fit! It didn't take long once I got the hang of it, and I made about 8 of them while watching TV.

http://www.squidoo.com/_origami

If you have some heavy paper, you can make framed or window ornaments. Cut the same shape out of a double thickness of heavy paper (I like the shape of a classic round ornament with points at the top and bottom) and cut out a window in the center of the top piece. Sandwich either a coordinating piece of decorative paper or a photograph or something pretty from a magazine in the window with a glue stick, add a hanging ribbon, and voila! ornament.

Beer bottle caps. Heineken has good colors. Nail a hole through and thread them.

Dried orange slices, sprinkled with cinnamon, and hung with some ribbon. They look beautiful, smell just like Christmas, and are totally natural...except for the ribbon. I've found a few websites with good directions on how to make them.

tulle poofs... maybe you could replace tull w/ the fabric you have? not sure if that would work but if it did i think those would look super cute on an xmas tree

http://www.oncewed.com/index.cfm?postID=316

also, not sure if you have doilys laying around but if not i'm sure you could sub something else... you can always count on martha

http://www.marthastewart.com/how-to/doily-star-tree-topper

My favorite is another one from Martha Stewart: making geometric ball ornaments by cutting out 20 circles, folding each into a triangle, and gluing the flaps.

Card ornaments

Plus, any material that's approximately cardstock or coverstock can be used. Consider using old received christmas cards, old unsent (ahem) christmas cards, photos, magazine covers, calendars, cereal boxes, etc.

I recommend lots of clothespins, clear-drying school glue, and a circle cutter. (Martha will give you a hand cramp with those scissors and tracing-around-jars. Give me a break.)

, blast it.

I had a tree that had some holes that needed huge ornaments to fill out the space. I had tissue paper cut into 4ths to reuse in my wrapping paper stash that I layered and twisted into paper flowers, stuck them in the holes between the branches = nice tree.

What about gingerbread or sugar cookies cut in various shapes? You can decorate them with royal icing and candy so it will all dry hard (just make sure you put a hole for the hook before you bake). You probably won't want to eat them after Christmas but the birds will so you end up with zero waste.

paper cranes

Salt dough clay. Great to make ornaments with the kids!

Years ago, my mother noticed that the bottoms of plastic soda bottles have interesting star shapes in them.

Then, one year my sister and I decided to make little plastic suncatchers to give to all the relatives. We bought those kits with plastic ornaments and little paint pots of "stained glass" paint.

After we painted the ornaments, Mama used the leftover paint to make designs on the soda bottle bottoms. Voila - it was beautiful. The most well recieved ornaments were the red-and-white and green-and-white ones that resembled starburst mint candys.

Also, we lived on a sandy beach on the Chesapeake Bay. Oyster shells are very easy to come by, and when I was thirteen, my first boyfriend made me a necklace by shooting a hole in an oyster shell with his b.b. gun and stringing ribbon through it. So, I asked him to shoot holes in several dozen oyster shells, and I decoupaged scenes onto the inside (I would cutout Santas and wreaths and sledding children from cute wrapping paper). After decoupaging, I would tie a Christmassy ribbon through the b.b. hole for hanging the ornament.

I still make them each year, and some of my friends have collections that stretch back 17 years. They've gotten a little neater and fancier (I now use a drill to make the holes, and use a gold or silver paint pen to draw a faint line around the very edge of the shell - or to personalize it with the name of a new baby).