DIY Christmas Crafts and Pinterest Hacks

I'm back with another festive post! This week, I decided to do my first ever craft-related post, which was very exciting! I made numerous different ornaments and decorations that were inspired by some popular Pinterest hacks, as well as a delicious DIY treat at the end of the post. They're all very straightforward and easy to make, meaning they're perfect for adding some festive flair to your house with Christmas right around the corner.

Salt Dough Christmas Tree

The first craft that I made was a salt dough Christmas tree, which was possibly one of my favourites to create. Whenever I'm on Pinterest, there's always many salt dough craft ideas floating around, and so I wanted to try making one myself, especially since everyone claims that it's very easy. 

To make the salt dough, I started by combining a cup of salt with an equal amount of plain flour. I mixed these together and then began to slowly add water, mixing it first with a spoon and then by hand as it thickened. I continued adding small amounts of water until it reached a dough-like consistency.

At this point, I started to knead the dough and then rolled it out into an even layer. I had five different star-shaped cookie cutters so decided to cut out two of each to make up the Christmas tree. A helpful tip is to make sure you have plenty of flour on your work surface, as otherwise the dough will stick to it and the stars will be hard to lift up.

I used a straw to poke a hole approximately in the centre of each star, as they will eventually be threaded together. I left the dough to sit at room temperature for a few hours before placing them in the oven at gas mark 4 for 2 hours, keeping an eye on them during this time.

Meanwhile, I decided to prepare the plant pot for the Christmas tree. I found some brown buttons in various sizes and decided to glue them together, giving it a homemade feel. It's much easier if you stick one button at a time opposed to glueing all of them and holding it together, as the buttons tend to slide around quite a lot and it's a fiddly process.

The next step was to paint each star. I alternated between a pale grey and white, ensuring that I'd painted the top, bottom and edges of each star. Once these were completely dry, I threaded them together using a piece of string, ensuring that they were in size order to replicate the shape of a Christmas tree. To achieve the best effect, I rotated all of the stars so that they weren't all facing one direction but were instead more mismatched. For the finishing touches, I added a bow to the top and stuck the pot to the base of the tree. I love how this ornament turned out and there's definitely lots of room to personalise it and make it unique.

Speaking of other options for making ornaments with salt dough, I decided to make this gingerbread man with some of the leftover dough. I followed the exact same steps as above, using the straw to create a hole in his head so that string could be added. I painted him white and added a bow around his neck to complete it, and I think this is a fun yet adorable way to use up some of the excess dough.

Scrabble Letter Ornaments 

This craft is easy to achieve and has a handmade aesthetic that I think is very cute and original. I started by deciding what phrase I wanted to make and gathering the right letters. If you don't have any Scrabble letters to use then it's no big deal, as packets of these are sold online and in craft stores. 'Let It Snow' is the phrase that I went for, but some alternatives that I really liked were 'Oh Deer' and 'Santa Paws', which you can see below. It's entirely up to you which phrases you create, but it tends to work best when the words are different sizes.

To create the hanging ornament, I started by glueing all of the letters together in a regular arrangement, so that each word was positioned centrally. Once this dried, I attached a piece of string to the back so that it could be hung from my Christmas tree. The final step to creating this decoration was adding some cotton wool to the top edges to look like fallen snow. I did this using some PVA glue and I feel as though it tied everything together, as well as relating to the phrase I used. I also sprinkled in some iridescent glitter to really make it sparkle and stand out.

Personalised Printables

If you take a look at Pinterest then you'll definitely see a variety of free printables that you can use. I hunted down some Christmassy ones that I liked and printed them off onto A4 card. I think these are all really cute and are an easy way to add some artwork to your house for the festive season, whilst still being budget friendly. The printable that you can see above is from Yellow Bliss Road.

I decided that I wanted to personalise each printable and add to it so that it was unique. I added some iridescent glitter and adhesive gems to enhance the white trees and falling snow, giving the image an extra sparkle and dimension. To finish it off, I placed it in a frame so that it looked like a true piece of artwork, opposed to just a printed image. I really like how this turned out and I think it definitely makes a huge difference without requiring much effort.

This is another alternative which is much simpler yet still looks effective. All it required was to print three 'h's and secure a button next to each one so that it replicated the phrase 'ho ho ho'. I framed this one and added a bell to the corner to add some interest. This is definitely a more minimal route but I still think it's pretty and will take you only a couple of minutes to recreate.

Hanging Button Star

This one was very easy to create, but I wanted something that would feel Christmassy whilst still having a shabby-chic vibe, thus fitting in nicely with my Christmas tree. This is probably the easiest of the crafts to recreate but I still think that it looks very cute, and you can create a variety of different looks based on the size and colour of the buttons you choose.

I arranged some lollypop sticks into the shape of a star and stuck them all together so that it was secure. I then used a variety of buttons to cover each section of the star, ensuring that there were no huge gaps. All of the buttons were of varying sizes and included different colours, mostly being blues, beiges and creams since this is the colour scheme of my house.

To complete this decoration, I attached a piece of string to the back so that it could be hung from my Christmas tree. I really like how this craft turned out and it didn't require much effort to make, so it's definitely one that you can easily recreate at home. You can also play around with different lollypop stick arrangements to create some alternate looks.

Christmas Tree Rice Krispie Treats

It wouldn't be a DIY crafts post without a recipe included! Whenever I'm scrolling through Pinterest I always see some incredible treats and delicious goodies that look almost effortless to create, so I wanted to have a go at one. Considering it's close to Christmas, I made white chocolate and Rice Krispie Christmas trees, which I have to say were delicious! 

I started by taking some baking paper and tracing around a plate to create some circles. You can do these any size that you want, but the bigger they are the larger the finished treats will be. After cutting out the circles, I cut a line across the radius and made the paper into a cone shape. This was secured with sellotape around the outside, to ensure that the cone shape was maintained for the tree shape. 

Afterwards, I melted some white chocolate in a bowl placed over a jug filled with boiling water. Breaking up the chocolate into smaller pieces ensures that it'll melt quicker and evenly, so I'd recommend doing this. I then added green food colouring to match the appearance of a Christmas tree. Initially, I used liquid food colouring but found that this made the chocolate stiffen up and turn into an almost paste-like consistency, which is apparently due to the imbalance between the oil in chocolate and water in the food colouring. 

To prevent this from happening, I used gel food colouring in my second attempt to maintain the thin consistency of melted chocolate. I added about 50 drops to get this shade of green, but you can add more or less depending on what you want. I then stirred in about two handfuls of Rice Krispies, ensuring that they were all coated with chocolate, and then condensed them into the cones. 

After leaving these to set in the fridge and ensuring that they were completely set, I removed the baking paper and began to decorate them. I sprinkled some icing sugar over the top to replicate snow and added some sprinkles to look like baubles. The finished trees definitely weren't the neatest, but I like how they turned out and they taste amazing - which is the most important thing!

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I hope that you liked seeing all of these crafts and I'd love to know if anyone recreates them. If you've posted any craft blog posts then I'd love to take a look, so make sure you share them with me in the comments. Thank you very much for reading this post, I hope you enjoyed it and I'll see you next week!

Love from Daisy x