On the second day of Christmas, Domestic Sluttery gave to me... a fully decorated Christmas tree!
Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas without a tree! Last year we gave away a real one, but this year we were asked for advice on artificial ones so they were safe for people with cats (apparently they eat the needles, because they're silly). So we asked Debenhams if we could have one of theirs. And they're spoiling you guys with this prize.
Not only are they giving away a MAHOOSIVE 6ft tree, they're also going to throw in a whole 60 piece decoration set so you can make your tree look super pretty. The best thing is that you'll be able to use all of your decorations and tree for years to come, and it's kitty-friendly. Brilliant. So what do you have to do to enter? Just tell us about the Christmas things you made when you were a kid. Did you make gift tags, or glittery cards? Or did you go all out and make salt dough decorations for the tree?
Tell us in the comments below, and we'll wait until 8pm tonight (GMT time, folks!) before we close the competition. That way you'll still be able to enter even if you're stuck on a train in the snow. We'll pick the winner at random, and let you know who won tomorrow. Good luck everyone!
The small print (yawn): The competition will close at 8pm December 2nd. This prize is only available to UK readers! We're going to send you a voucher so you can pick your tree up from your nearest Debenhams store - Christmas trees are difficult to fit in post boxes. You must also leave a name as well to make sure we know who you are! If you're anon your entry won't count. We're not allowed to enter our own competitions, but Siany is excellent at making angels out of a loo roll, a bit of glitter and a paper doily. Blue Peter ain't got nothin' on her. We wish we could enter our competitions. Humph.
I am originally from Poland, so when I was growing up, there were v. few ornaments that you could buy. We all made our own, mostly traditional paper chains. We would also bake cookies to hang them on the Christmas tree.
ReplyDeleteI remember I made a tree elf from a pine cone, pipe cleaners, cotton wool and paper, I think I was about 5 and I still have it now on the tree and I am 29 :0)
ReplyDeleteI used to make loads of stuff for the tree! The most famous (and by famous I mean they're still going on the tree 20 years later!) are my Pine cones dunked in glitter glue and my fabulous angels made from loo-rolls with paper doilies for skirts with plasticine heads!
ReplyDeleteI think I always fell back on spraying pine cones with glitter as a kid and tying them to the tree. Was easy and looked festive.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was 18 months old me and my mum made masses and masses of paper chains out of coloured card and those little sticky stars. We still have them and put them up 20 years on!
ReplyDeleteSticky marzipan fruits that had been very well handled and moulded at school before being proudly presented to my parents as a present.
ReplyDeletewe used to make paperchains and tie ribbon onto the backs of chocolates to hang :) then i progressed onto making 3d snowflakes!
ReplyDeleteWell.. as a child I still thought I had some creative talent. I did everything - oranges with spiked with cloves, salt dough, stars out of glittery paper, Christmas cards with cotton as snow, fimo Christmas decoration... I even made a manger with the whole family out of clay.
ReplyDeleteI am now really impressed with myself actually.
Our family doesnt generally celebrate christmas. So when my sister and I were younger we would apply our easter decorations skills to christmas, and make baubles out of hollowed out egg shells! We would paint them in various christmassy themed designs and hang them off those super cool pop out tinsel style runners you could get!
ReplyDeleteMy paper Christmas pudding (made circa 1983) still takes pride of place on the Christmas tree, even though the glitter has now fallen off. Add to that the bells made from yoghurt pots and dried pasta, and the scribbled-over-faced angel (temper tantrum), and you can see why I'd love to win some new decorations!
ReplyDeleteMy friend's Nan worked in the local dairy, and brought home the foil left over when they cut out the milk bottle tops, we used to make Christmas garlands out of them, because they were shiny and came in silver, red and blue!!
ReplyDeleteMy sisters and I would make snowflakes out of silver card and glitter and sequins!
ReplyDeleteOoo! I want a real tree, but am fearful of Professor Moriarty eating the needles. He may be an evil genius, but he's a pretty stupid cat.
ReplyDeleteI made an angel with a ping pong ball for a head when I was about 3 and it still adorns our Christmas tree every year (I'm 25 now). It's pretty hideous and I've crayoned it's lips so much that it looks a little bit like a drag queen.
Oh I love Christmas and this one is extra special because its the first for my husband and I as a married couple :D We made loads of Christmas stuff as a kid: the compulsory doily angel was always a favourite; the shortcake biscuit tree decorations that nobody ate because somebody claimed to have witnessed the dog licking them; calanders decorated with pasta... but the best thing about Christmas is being able to wear tinsel in your hair. FACT.
ReplyDeleteWe made a whole range of tat *ahem* highly tasteful decorations and suchlike including:
ReplyDelete- Toilet roll Santa Claus (unusually thin!)
- Pictures from Christmas cards (robins, candles etc) cut out and stuck on foil-covered cardboard with ribbon to hang from tree
- Cardboard Christmas tree with LED lights and a battery (top juniors, obviously, when we trusted to handle batteries)
- Cross stitch stocking shapes
My grandmother then gazumped us by knitting a whole nativity scene - little individual figures up to an including a knitted manger (and a sheep, of course). I call that showing off!
I made an entire Nativity Scene out of plastacene and paper clips complete with a broadly smiling Mary (I thought she'd be proud of giving birth to the baby Jeebus)that my mother still puts out every year even though it's more than thirty years old and looking a bit dusty. I need to win a tree because I've recently been diagnosed with a SEVERE allergy to tree saps (pine, latex, eucalyptus, tea tree oil) and recently ended up in hospital wearing a tafetta prom dress and a feathered fascinator.
ReplyDeleteMy mum and I had a lovely tradition every Christmas when I was a child - she would make Christmas cakes and I would make the decoration using a combination of marzipan, icing and food colourings! (a very messy and delicious combintation to a child!!) One year I made a marzipan chimney with Santa's head poking out and another year I made a load of tiny robins out of icing!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was wee we made angel decorations out of pegs! And the obligatory popcorn tinsel. Although I used to eat more than we put on the tree.
ReplyDeleteI made a toilet tissue baby jesus in an egg box crib full of straw... his eyes were drawn on in biro and he was celotapped to the base...
ReplyDeletemy mum still has him and brings him out every year!
We used to make paper chains and remember my dad helped as make a little nativaty scene, it had real staw in the barn and even a little light inside!
ReplyDeletemy sister and i used to get the little smartie boxes (remember those?) and wrap them up and put ribbon on and then hide them in the christmas tree. They looked fab as mini gifts!
ReplyDeleteI used to collect cones in the Autumn and then paint them and cover them in glitter
ReplyDeleteThere are some grotesque saltdough santa's that my brother and I made at primary school still catching up dust in my mother's decoration box and every year, despite my best attempts to destroy them (dropping them in the cat's litter tray being last year's best attempt), they end up on the tree again.
ReplyDeleteI used to carefully cut diet coke and standard cans in heart shapes which would then be hung on the tree. They would look great all silvery and red! x
ReplyDeleteOne year I went to my grandparents' house and my Grandpa and I constructed from scratch a little nativity scene - we built the barn from wood, then glued moss to the top of it, and filled it with hay. My granny and I then constructed little dough figurines of the characters from the nativity scene (luckily she was more artistic than me, as I'm dubious my work would have been decipherable as to who the characters were!)
ReplyDeleteWe still have the nativity scene to this day and display it in our living room, next to the tree.
Every year our primary school had a Christmas fair, and they had a sneaky way of getting money out of our parents - we all had to make a Christmas yule log table centrepiece thing which we'd then sell at the fair. Of course our parents couldn't refuse to buy them, could they!
ReplyDeleteThey were horrific things - we'd be given half a log each and we'd spend an afternoon smothering them with glue and covering them with glitter and holly and goodness knows what else!
I made salt dough decorations for the tree one year at school. The next year we brought the decorations down from the loft and they had turned into bread! This year I'm making popcorn and cranberry tinsel.
ReplyDeletei was thinking about this the other day!
ReplyDeletei remember making a really awful father christmas out of a loo roll, cotton wool and pipecleaners... and then there were the bits of cardboard egg box covered in glitter. they really did look nasty! i'm so glad i found them all in the attic and bin them when i was in my teens, as they did come out year after year!
I grew up in india but used to decorate the tree with a friend every year at her place...she had a tree from dubai and we used to make decorations weeks before Christmas and put it up..
ReplyDeleteWe always made gift tags from the previous years cards. Then at school we would make an advent calendat, even had little doors cut out. I imagine health n safety wouldnt allow it these days. Now i am a proper grownup i still make xmas stuff. I made an advent from matchboxes last weekend. Photos on my blog.
ReplyDeleteI made decorations out of an eggbox. Don't know what you'd call them - I cut out the bits the eggs sat in and just covered them with tinfoil, they were EGGSEPTIONALLY awful but my mum used them for over 30 years, with the tinfoil falling off even, they looked hilarious. I guess she must love me after all :)
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved christmas so much when I was in primary school. We would make gift tags from old christmas cards using pinking shears, which were the best thing ever!!! We also made salt dough decorations for our class tree and was allowed to take it home on the last day of term. And the massive paper chains we made to decorate the class were miles and miles long!! Happy days!!!
ReplyDeleteUsing the clear coloured cellophane wrappers from quality street sweets and black sugar paper I made tiny christmassy sihouettes that I put near the lights so that they cast a magical and colourful display when we turned the main light out.
ReplyDeleteI absolutely loved christmas so much when I was in primary school. We would make gift tags from old christmas cards using pinking shears, which were the best thing ever!!! We also made salt dough decorations for our class tree and was allowed to take it home on the last day of term. And the massive paper chains we made to decorate the class were miles and miles long!! Happy days!!!
ReplyDeleteWe always had a fancy dress party at primary school. One year, Mum and I made me a Christmas tree costume. We covered empty boxes with wrapping paper to serve as presents,and stuck them on to green net for the skirt. Our best effort was an angel with a ping pong ball for a head, which I laboriously sewed on to a green woolly hat.
ReplyDeleteThe only problem was, the parcels looked too good - by the time the parade came, every one had been pulled off by the other children, thinking they held Christmas goodies.
Diana
My family have always been involved in folk traditions at Christmas, so I have always spent a few hours in the run up to Christmas making a Wesley Bob - two circles of holly and fern held together, with a figure of baby Jesus in the middle. I always got a bit creative though and had a pink one with tinsel, flashing lights and a pink stiletto one year!
ReplyDeleteWe used to make everything from wrapping paper to the gift tags :) I miss the good ol days!
ReplyDeleteHi, when I was a kid I used to make those little iced christmas biscuits you could hang - all the best decorations are edible!
ReplyDeletewe made memories, mostly. My mum had the same old tree for my whole life - year in, year out, and I used to get so upset with her for it. I'd give anything to see those tatty, weathered, festively beaten old bits and bobs again.
ReplyDeleteWe always cleared out our classrooms with the deccies we'd made. Paper snowflakes (they still make me smile), paperchains, stained glass windows and the obligatory calendar!
Makes me very happy to be a mummy, so I can do it all over again! <3
I love crafty Christmases. One year I made a full Nativity scene out of loo rolls, cotton wool and felt - pretty sure my mum still has it 20 years later! She also still has an advent calender I made for her out of 2 sheets of sugar paper and old Christmas cards. Lots of glitter as well of course!
ReplyDelete30 years ago when I was 6 I made a Christmas decoration at school. It was a star made out of 2 lollipop sticks & knitting wool. My mum treasures it & to this day puts it on her tree every year - in a good spot too, not round the back! Ali x (Perfumegirl74)
ReplyDeleteBaubles from egg shells (yoke blown out). It was hell. Hell!
ReplyDeleteIn primary school our class made owls from felt bits stuck to a pine cone for our trees. Mine never hung straight so it looked like it was going round a corner. My mum still has it and still hangs it right at the front of her tree.
ReplyDeleteOne year I really wanted an advent calendar because all my friends had one, so I made one from cereal box. Drew tiny pictures on one piece and a big picture on another with doors cut out. I don't still have that lol.
We (me and my sister) used to make things out of marzipan. We only ever had pink, green and yellow food colouring so only three colours of marzipan and although things started off being Christmassy with our creations, we were soon making marzipan snails, teapots and everything else under the sun. Bizarre but it became a kind of Christmas tradition!
ReplyDeleteWe used to make Angels and snowflakes from white paper doilies and cover them (and the floor, the table and the cat!) in glitter.
ReplyDeleteLike everyone else, Blue Peter had nothing on us.... we always tried to make that awful advent wreath out of wire coat hangers and cheap tinsel, but the one thing we did (AND STILL DO NOW WE HAVE OUR OWN CHILDREN)is make our own candles in a little mould, then we'd all sit round as a family and light our collection of real candles.... better than any fairy lights any day :-)
ReplyDeleteOne year, my siblings and I thought it'd be marvelously festive if, instead of the traditional toilet-roll-and-ping-pong-ball angel, we painted the living room wall sparkly pink using nail varnish.
ReplyDeleteIt was not so marvelously festive when my dad came in and discovered us mid-decorating session. We had to put the tree in front of what ended up being a smushed up brown-ish stain in the middle of the living room wall.
That was one very merry christmas in the Solomon household.
i always used to make paper chains out of xmas wrapping paper that used to go on & on & on, sure my mum was quietly cursing me haha
ReplyDeleteWhen I was little my Dad was from a Star family and my Mum was from an Angel family- almost ripped them apart... Until my sister and I took a Barbie doll dressed it in gold lycra- created a halo from pipe cleaners and stuck her to a golden star we cut out from a cake board. Now we're a Star/Angel family and happier for it. Twenty years later that Barbie still shines down on us all from a top the tree...
ReplyDeleteI remember making yards and yards of paper chains to decorate my bedroom and the lounge (though remember one fateful year when the paper chains got a bit close to the fire.....) - also lots and lots of glittery things, I still love glitter these days!! We always had a real tree which me and my brother would decorate, then my mum would "re-decorate" it once we had gone to bed! :)
ReplyDeleteMy mum taught me to knit when I was very young, so I used to knit santas and snowmen for the tree. They were fairly hideous but my parents kept them and they still get hauled out every year and hung on the tree where everyone can laugh at them :)
ReplyDeleteI also remember at school being given a huge Christmas tree cut out of green paper, a copy of the Kays catalogue, a pair of safety scissors and a Pritt stick, and being told to decorate the tree with all the toys I wanted for Christmas. I think I had every variety of Tiny Tears and My Little Pony glued on there!
Hmmm ... i came to crafting very late it seems, all i remember making is paper chains. I distinctly remember the taste of the glue on the back of them ... ick!
ReplyDeleteI used to make stained glass cookie ornaments for the tree when I was younger, I think I'm going to revive the tradition this year!
ReplyDeleteI used to make Greek shortbread with my mum. You'd roll them in rosewater and icing sugar. We still make them every year. Beautiful.
ReplyDeleteGwenllian
Lanterns, made from black paper and coloured tissue paper!
ReplyDeleteWe made those classic Angels for the top of the tree, using a cone made from card, a bit of tinsel and a ping-pong ball - anyone else? No? ...
ReplyDeletechristmas is THE time for crafting in our house! we would make paper snowflakes, cover matchboxes with wrapping paper ribbon to make small tree decorations, and there are styrofoam baubles, covered in pasta and glitter with hideous childhood photos nestled in hacked out hollows ha!
ReplyDeletewhen i started technology in school, there was a small wooden tree with led lights AND a manger on which the star lit up when you turned the sitting room light off. advanced stuff!
my favourite however were the snowmen jars. glass, screw top jars, covered in white wadding and decorated to look like snowmen. they were locked in the glass cabinet, we hid the key on santa but yet every year they were filled with dolly mixture on xmas morning, and they still are :)
I remember making a card for my mum at school with a very simple cross stitched Christmas tree on it - I was so proud when I finally finished it and handed it over to her!
ReplyDeleteCorinne x
I remember making a stocking when I was a kid, the sparkly bits fell off most years so I'd have to remake it again each time :-D
ReplyDeleteI used to go to my nana and grandad's house to make christmas decorations each year, a cunning plan by my mum if ever there was one. My engineer grandad would cut out lots of very precise cardboard shapes whilst I would cover everything (and occasionally the shapes) in glitter, and my nana made little lace rosettes :) A number of my creations still adorn the tree at home almost 30 years later, but one of my favourite things was muffler things made of a loo roll covered in fake sheepskin. At home, we used to make fudge and chocolate coated cherries - anything, in fact, that required concentration as it was dipped (a christmas eve job to occupy us!). Everyone got hand made cards - I feel a spree coming on just at the thought of it!
ReplyDeleteI remember making a stocking when I was a kid, the sparkly bits fell off most years so I'd have to remake it again each time :-D
ReplyDeleteSorry, forgot to say I'm @MunchKim on twitter
We used to make Christmas decorations from wire hangers. We would cover them with tinsel and hang different coloured baubles from them. They were awful but my parents would hang them up every year without fail.
ReplyDeleteI loved making biscuits to hang on the tree in a variety of different shapes that were never eaten! And I make a paper chain every year that looks gorgeous for all of a day and then starts to look tatty! Started it yesterday, hopefully going to do more cutting and sticking later on!
ReplyDeleteI still make all my own christmas decorations.. pompom people http://twitpic.com/3c6881, button hearts http://twitpic.com/3c67xm and Christmas Robins http://twitpic.com/3c6bxh
ReplyDeleteIt had to be the hard dough christmas decorations....every year i would plead with my mum to buy yet more glitter to decorate them with! The cupboards must have been brimming over with the amount of glitter i was obsessed with! And obviously the age old hand made calender....beautiful decorated with what i thought was an amazing painting, looking back, that was all just scribbles! Ekk xx
ReplyDeleteMy favourite thing to make for Christmas was little snow domes. I used to make these with my mum. We used to use old jam jars and then any old figures we had we would glue to the bottom of the jar. When this was set we would then cut up paper in to tiny pieces and add glitter and water and we would have amazing Christmas snow scenes. I loved it!
ReplyDeleteWe also would make new Christmas cards by cutting out the characters and drawing backgrounds for them. So many happy memories.
Definitely the toilet roll angels with tonnes of glitter glue! I still have the angel costume my mum made for me - a pillow case trimmed with gold tinsel :o) Debbie M
ReplyDeleteOpps p.s. this is who i am:
ReplyDeleteEmbarrassing but true - my sister and used to make Christmas tapes. Not mix tapes but she and I singing the entire James and his Technicolour Dreamcoat score! Plus various Christmas carols. We were only 6 or 7 and there are huge sections where we are just in fits of giggles. Sadly my Mum still has the evidence!
ReplyDeleteBlueberry muffins for breakfast on Christmas morning. My mum would make the dough and let me mix in the fresh blueberries (I grew up in Los Angeles). Nothing reminds me more of the holidays now that I'm an adult than homemade blueberry muffins. Strange but true!
ReplyDeleteOooh I feel Christmassy just thinking about it!
ReplyDeleteWe used to go and visit my grandparents just before Christmas, where we'd make marzipan sweets and a production line of mince pies ready for Christmas Eve. At school we made Christingles and cross stitch cards, stained glass windows and advent calendars.
And at home we made fimo tree decorations, paper chains, and, our crowning glory: icosihedrons. These were 3D, 20-sided balls with each side cut from a different Christmas card and sprinkled with fake snow, which our neighbour taught us to make. They still go up every year and I still have the templates for them.
Paper Christmas lanterns were a favourite of mine. You could either decorate a sheet of paper then fold, cut and stick it into a lanterns shape or you could cheat and use wrapping paper which might even have a bit of glitter on. I also like to have little displays of twigs with moss and lichen on collected while out country walking.
ReplyDeleteI always made paper chains. Loved them! Kept me amused for hours. Always made so many we could decorate my grandparents' house as well!! My sister used to make the snowflakes - bit more fiddly that job...
ReplyDeleteMy sister and me used to make christmas pompoms to put on our tree, lots of different coloured wool and some that were all white sprayed with glitter to look like snow balls. My gran taught us how to make them by winding wool round two cardboard 'doughnuts'. I've been making them again this year with little glitter jewels on...they look fabby!!
ReplyDeleteEver the super-frugal hippies my parents would get us making
ReplyDeletePaperchains with Christmas wrapping paper from the previous year
Stained glass windows with old quality street wrappers
Snowflakes made with old printouts from offices
Christmas puddings made from old pair of tights
Also decorations made from baked pastry painted with food colouring, that would have gone a bit mouldy by New Years.
I definitely remember making a lot of loo-roll angels (can't help wondering how long my mother had to save all the loo rolls for?!) and paper chains. My parents also still have various pine-cone Santas made by my brother and myself!
ReplyDeleteI remember making baubles for the tree from empty egg shells; first you had to get your mum to put a hole in each end and blow the egg out and then very gently decorate it without breaking the delicate shell. My mum still has them decorating her tree.
ReplyDeleteWe still have a few home-made-by-children tree decorations knocking about, which we dutifully hang every year although I can't remember us making them so I can only assume it's our work!
ReplyDeleteWe did have one set of colourful tree lights for years though, and it became an annoying tradition of having to re-make it each Christmas as one light would also go on the string and you'd have to spend ages replacing bulbs to figure out which! They don't seem to make them in the same silly way anymore, thankfully.
The 8th of December is in Italy the day in which we are decorating the Christmas Tree and we used to do it all together! Now I'm 5 year that i lost this pleasure and it would be amazing to have atree to decorate again! I was just thinking to make biscuit decoration! Please please a tree to me :)
ReplyDeleteIn not quite sure what they were but it was a mixture of pipecleaners, paper doilleys, glitter and egg cartons...thinking back they must have looked like glittery war of the work Martians or alien burlesque spiders but my mum had them all over the tree!
ReplyDeleteWe
I made the worst cardboard Christmas tree decorations, ever. I know this as my mother still has many of them and embarasses me every year!
ReplyDeleteRemember making snowflakes by folding up pieces of white paper and cutting random shapes out. Open the paper up and voila - a snowflake. No need for cheap replicas today!
ReplyDeleteWe made a nativity scene with people and animals made out of toilet roll tubes. We stuck paper faces on them and decorated with crepe paper. My mum still has them 25 years later!
ReplyDeleteWe were never that creative but every year my mum and I used to recycle the old Christmas cards using pinking shears to make gift tags, and I remember making paper chains once after seeing them do it on Blue Peter. I don't think mine were very successful though! I did more in school like dough ornaments and marbled paper to sell at the Christmas Fair
ReplyDeleteI used to build a little house entirely made out of sweets.
ReplyDeleteYou build the walls out of cookies and glue them with icing. Decorate everything with haribo, chocolate, nuts or what ever you fancy.
Ready!
Anne B
ReplyDeletePaper chains every year and snowmen made from loo rolls covered in cotton wool.
Paper chains, gingerbread houses (more like shacks in my case), and paper angels! I love Christmas! :D
ReplyDeleteOh my this takes me back - miles and miles of multicoloured paper chains!
ReplyDeletewell firstly, before we could even start decorating, the whole house needed cleaning (boring as hell) then we were allowed to play and make loads of decorations for the tree, it mostly looked liked Elf had vomited all over it however. BUT My pride of joy was a chocolate log house made entirely from chocolate fingers, with sloppy icing for the rendering and a mini tea light inside that melted the chocolate together. Rogue Traders would of had a field day on it, but it tasted lovely. (especially the chocolate spoon licking session afterwards).
ReplyDeleteOh god, so many things. They were all pretty awful and my mum still has ALL of them. They are so terrible. For example; tinsel that has been pushed through tubes of penne pasta, which have been covered in glitter. Can you imagine? And she hangs this up on our mantelpiece, for actual PEOPLE to see. I was about 4 or 5 making that.
ReplyDeleteThen there is a cardboard star which I am still very proud of - it's literally a jaunty star cut out of card, covered in glitter. That's it. On the back it says 'rachel lewis' in 6 year old handwriting. Over the years the glitter has become rather patchy, but it still gets pride of place every year on the tree. My brothers taunt me every year when that rocks up - their contributions are amazing salt dough things, that they made in cubs, and I am SO sure they had adult help. In fact, i don't think they even went near them. Humph.
Other home made decorations include plastic 'make your own stain glass decoration failures', loo roll santas with cotton wool beards, and an array of cardboard fairies, minus wings which were probably lost in the mid-90s.
TINSEL PASTA. Oh the horror.
I used to love making those peppermint creams to give as gifts. Sadly, our dog always managed to snaffle them before we managed to wrap them as gifts (insert sad face here). No really, it was the dog.
ReplyDelete*blush*
One Christmas, I remember gathering all the pinecones and berries I could find from the forest and meticulously spray painting them gold and silver and adding cotton string.
ReplyDeleteMy Mum was furious, as I covered the patio in metallic spray, as I 'forgot' to use newspaper.
The Christmas tree didn't even look that great with them on, Whoops.
I remember collecting from the local woods holly ivy and fir cones and then spraying them silver and gold with my mum then bending wire coathangers and wrapping everything round to make a door wreath, always lopsided but special.
ReplyDeleteI always made a nativity scene with my dolls and soft toys. I'd beg and borrow scraps of fabric to dress them up then make my family sing carols to them on Christmas Eve.
ReplyDeleteMy mum and dad were privelaged enough to get entire pads of paper cut up into snowflakes AND the resulting papery confetti stuck into the carpet til Easter :)
ReplyDeletei used to get bored making loo roll fairies and turn them into dinosaurs and robots instead, girly things used to bug me when i was a littlin
ReplyDeletePaperchains! They looked rubbish, but it was Christmas so they had to be made, it was the law! And always had to be with those kits with the metallic paper where you licked the edge to make them stick, and then they came unstuck by the time Dad got home!
ReplyDeleteChristmas was all about those Blue Peter gifts. Oranges with cloves and ribbons (I never really understood what a pomander was), and holly wreaths for the door. Trips through the local park yielded lots of fallen foliage to go with the bright red berries, there's nothing more welcoming.
ReplyDeleteI made lots of decorations- pom pom snow men, paper chains, christingles, baubles, but one that sticks in my mind is really horrid decoration made from a cut up yoghurt pot and bits of tinsel. The nice thing is that my parents still put it out on the tree every year! (somewhere near the back, usually!)
ReplyDeleteAs kids we used to steal my mum's "dolly" clothes pegs and glue or tape a load of loo roll onto them to make Angels. We used to hang them on the tree or have them around the house. I'm sure there are still a few in her decoration box, and I'm 39 now!
ReplyDeleteDuring the summer our little Christmas Angels got a new lease of life hanging out with their friends on the washing line! :)
I remember making miles and miles of paperchains from cut up magazines! Also at school a rather weird tree topper, which was supposed to be reversible - it was a coloured in star, and a painted santa which were glued togather, but of course being completely different shapes, you could see the back of the one you weren't using!
ReplyDeleteI feel all crafty now! What shall I make ....
When I was a kid we used to make sheep ornaments for the tree using cotton wool and toilet roll tubes which I don't think is allowed nowadays! lol and my favourite was a snow globe made out of water, glitter, a jar and a father christmas stuck upside down on the lid!
ReplyDeleteMe and my sister used to make peppermint creams and chocolate truffles. Then we'd sit around and watch Christmas films like Muppet's Christmas Carol!
ReplyDeleteI used to love making the paper chains with the sticky paper. Used to make them too long, my mum hated having to wrap them round the tree
ReplyDeleteNot quite for the tree - but one year when I was about three or four, so I'm told... Mum was making mince pies, and I gathered up all the scraps of pastry (including the ones off the floor) rolled them up and made jam tarts for Daddy - which I insisted he ate and stood over him until he'd finished... every one burnt, rock-hard, grey, or all three!
ReplyDeleteBless! Apparently he choked them down to the last crumb.
I just wanted to add that this is the best comment thread ever, and I want to make all of it all over again now!
ReplyDeleteHello!
ReplyDeleteMy Mum definitely involved me in the Christmas baking and I felt my role in stirring the Christmas cake was of paramount importance. She still calls me for a 'mental stir of the Christmas cake.'
Lauren Haggerty
Me and my sisters, would put our pippa/sindy dolls in shiny paper, and place them in the tree!!
ReplyDeleteThe newest ones always got the best branches to sit on, and the nicest sparkly paper dresses. The older ones, would be placed further back, and they would normally have their hair cut short, and would wear plainer paper dresses.
You see, as soon as we got new ones the other dolls, (unless they were very very special to us) immediately became 'slaves' :O and had to have their hair cut, black felt tip 'dirt' on them , and wear hankies!!!! ;)
When I was younger we used to go to a family friend's house and she would always have three christmas trees. One was in the luxury lounge and decorated like out of a catalogue, one was the family tree with all the presents and the final was the kids tree where we would contribute. My favourite thing to make was a popcorn, cranberry and beads string. Though looking back now i'm not sure 6 year olds should have been entrusted with threading needles and lacing them through bits of popcorn! When the chains were finished it was customary to dip them in glitter. Allegedly for effect but probably to stop us eating them.
ReplyDeletei remember making paper chain links at school and we used to wrap it around the xmas tree intead of garlands
ReplyDeleteOh, we made the lot! Glittery pinecones, cotton wool/toilet roll snowmen, paper chains, you name it, we made it! Being a Brownie helped us expand our Christmas craft skills too.
ReplyDeleteBut eventually my mum banned tubes of glitter from the house after my sister decided it would make the tree prettier if she poured the glitter straight onto it........I still suffer from the glitter depravation even now....think I might have to buy myself some and have a bit of Glitter-mania b4 Christmas :)
I remember a lovely design tech class when I was ten or so. Our teacher sat us all down and taught us about twenty different stitches and we all made our own Christmas stockings. People who finished theirs first could go on to make decorations for their trees. I love sewing now, and I can remember most of the stitches I was taught :)
ReplyDeleteIn reception we made angels. Hundreds of them. Ones that would stand up, ones that would hang from the ceilings, massive ones that would adorn the walls... My mum once coloured one in nail varnish, it looked awesome. Mine were always blue and purple and crimson, my favourite colours.
My 3 sisters and I used to save the silver and gold paper from Caramac bars in the weeks leading up to Christmas. We also used to get purple tissue paper from the greengrocers which the apples were wrapped in. We saved toilet roll tubes and would make all sorts of tree decorations and angels with purple dresses and silver wings. We were very creative and used flour and water glue. I remember being very proud of making a robin tree decoration which had sequins for eyes and my sisters teased me saying it looked more like a turkey. It was definitely a lot of fun.
ReplyDeleteMy mum has kept all of the Christmas decs we made as kids including little felt dolls that didn't match anything!! We also made multi coloured paper chains that we would hang from the ceiling! Our lounge was full of clashing colours every Christmas! :-)
ReplyDeleteMy mum still uses the fairy that i made when at school - toilet roll with tinsel round with a bald bauble on top - then i used the pink material which i`d removed from the bauble as the fairys hair! Tho i have noticed in recent years its been moved further down the tree. :o/
ReplyDeleteI never made anything as a little kid. As a teenager though I used to make the Christmas cake. My home ec teacher was a little confused by my deep navy cake with gold stars (not White? Shock horror!). It looked fab though.
ReplyDeleteWhen we were young, our mum would keep the plastic tray from inside our advent calendars and the next year we would make chocolate decorations using the trays as a mold. We would wrap them in Christmas paper and ribbon and give them to friends and put them in stockings. It was excellent fun but we were always very embarrassed giving them to our friends. Now, the homemade trend is definitely back in fashion, so I may have to get recycling, melting and molding!
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid I lived in France- and we made Christmas tree and bauble-shaped chocolates, as well as salt dough decorations! Aaah those were the good days <3 I still remember all the melted chocolate and all the glitter and sequins ^_^ at school we also had a class advent calendar and every one of us in the class were given a number- when it was our turn, we'd open the corresponding door to the advent calendar to find a bar of Kinder chocolate! :D Really miss those days xx
ReplyDeleteI remember spending hours and hours sticking paper chains together using coloured gummed strips of paper, which you used to have to lick at one end, thread through and stick. I think my parents gave us that particular task so they could have a bit of "quality time" together.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was a kid I lived in France- and we made Christmas tree and bauble-shaped chocolates, as well as salt dough decorations! Aaah those were the good days <3 I still remember all the melted chocolate and all the glitter and sequins ^_^ at school we also had a class advent calendar and every one of us in the class were given a number- when it was our turn, we'd open the corresponding door to the advent calendar to find a bar of Kinder chocolate! :D Really miss those days xx
ReplyDelete^^ forgot to give you my full name! It's Shibani Pushparajah :)
We recycled the tree chocolate wrappers & made them into balls & hung them on the tree.
ReplyDeletePartly because we were too lazy to get up & put them in the bin.
Me & my mum would also make christmas pudding & christmas cake. I loved doing this, the smell is just...CHRISTMAS! This year was the first time I have made a Christmas cake by myself, the cake making was a real family thing that me & mama D would always do together :)
I found an old comic with instructions on how to make your own aquarium out of a shoe box with fish dangling off string. However, at the tender age of 7 I was concerned that it was December and it wasn't remotely Christmassy, so I made the aquarium (complete with a coloured in background of water and plankton) but put reindeer in it!
ReplyDeleteI made a silver bell out of an egg box, tin foil and pipe cleaner when i was about 3 in nursery school and my mum still puts it on the tree <3 bless. I think i might make some of those tonight!!
ReplyDeleteI remember making paper lanterns at my Grandma's house and of course lots of paper chains. As a teenager I made a fairy castle from cardboard tubes sprayed with silver paint and arranged on a cake board
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ReplyDeletePine cones covered in glitterfied glue and stuffed with cotton wool to look like snow! Tied to the tree with curling ribbon!
ReplyDeleteMy mum still has all of our childhood creations and puts them on the tree every year!
I remember making a cardboard angel out of loo roll, with cotton wool wings and an overdose of glitter. Also remember a pretty impressive Christmas post box used for primary school class to post their cards in - plenty of red crepe and I suspect some grown up help...!
ReplyDeleteI made these mini Christmas pudding decorations for the tree by painting ping pong balls with brown paint, using tip-ex to make the icing and some holly and berry confetti.It was very effective and well made, My 91 year old grandma still hangs them on her tree!
ReplyDeleteHelene
mum used to buy ready made christmas chocolate decorations, which i would then extract the chocolatey inside from and fill with random household objects. less christmas-crafting, more christmas crafty...
ReplyDeleteYou name it, I've made it but my favourites were always the lanterns I made from brightly coloured sugar paper and gold foil. My mother still uses a couple that survived to this day.
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ReplyDeleteMy favourite has to be the angel I made 25 years old! I couldn't find an angel to go on top of the tree and money was tight, so I bought a Barbie doll reduced in one of the supermarkets, pulled her legs off and stuck her body into a loo roll! A Lovely net skirt made from remnants of my wedding dress (with the obligatory light up under her skirt!) and voila! One angel for a fraction of the cost of the horrible shop bought ones! Over the years, she has acquired a wand and wings and still sits proudly on the top of my tree! My husband always puts her on the tree last thing and strategically arranges her skirts! She is still more beautiful than any angel or fairy you can buy!
ReplyDeleteOh dear, I'm not sure I was very creative as a child. I do remember a nativity scene made of different colours of shiny paper and stuck to the living room wall with blu-tack, but I suspect my input to that was minor. Perhaps I should start making up for it now - fetch the glitter!
ReplyDeletei can remember decorating the tree with toilet rolls decorated with glitter and random bits of chewed up tissue paper ...placed on the tree with pride amongst ratty old tinsel, me nans old baubles(now worth a fortune on e-bay) and a pretty sad looking string of gopping plastic flower lights....nothing like the uber cool christmas decorations of today...but....somehow a thousand times more magical and exciting!
ReplyDeleteI remember stringing popcorn and cranberries together as garland... and of course making home made snowflakes out of folded up paper and cutting out designs... awww Christmas...
ReplyDeletetoilet roll santas- red crepe paper, a cone hat, a white belt, some cotton wool, and far too much glue!!
ReplyDeleteI of course made a wide selection of Christmas tree decorations made out of salt dough and fimo clay all shapes and sizes including stars, angels, snowmen, and a very lifelike cocker spaniel which took pride of place at the top of the tree.
ReplyDeleteMy mum humoured me for a number of years until enough was enough and the decorations were replaced by glass baubles. Humph!!
Toilet roll Angels with paper doilies for dresses and wings and wool hair!!!
ReplyDeleteLooked dodgy but always had pride of place on the top of the tree :0)
I made all the usual things but the piece de resistance was one the 3 Kings.
ReplyDeleteThe body was made using a used plastic paint bottle...do you remember the squeezy ones that you used at school in the late 70's, early 80's? If you give The 3 King a good rattle you can hear the dried yellow paint rattle around inside it.
On top of the paint bottle sits a paper mache head....it's not exactly head shaped but you get the idea. The 'head' is covered in pink paper with coloured paper stuck on to make the features. As a 6 yr old I was obviously going through a demonic phase as the thing has the most evil gaze you have ever seen on a Christmas decoration.
Now, on to the outfit....ooooh, the outfit! The 'body' is wrapped in a purple glittery fabric (very King-esque) with a couple of arms covered in the same fabric (and pinned on. No safety pins here, just plain old sewing pins. No H&S madness in the early 80's). The head is adorned with a hat made of the same fabric with a purple spangley trim. Stuck on the bald pate with glue.
The demonic 3 King has sat under my parents Christmas tree for the last 30 yrs. It is their most cherished Christmas decoration even though it's falling to pieces and raises serious questions about the psyche of it's maker!
we made gingerbread stars with a a hole to thread ribbon through to hang on the tree.
ReplyDeleteSarah
Pine cone fairies with hazelnut heads!
ReplyDeleteToilet roll fairies for the tops of various trees and multi-coloured paper chains.
ReplyDeleteMy parents wouldnt put my decorations on the tree as they said it made the tree look, and i quote, "shite."
ReplyDeleteGot to love the straight talking scots.
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Ooooh you just sneaked in, Dawn! No more entries now!
ReplyDeletePine cone fairies with hazelnut heads!
ReplyDeleteI MADE THOSE TOO