Josephine’s Handmade Holidays

Simplifying during the holiday season and taking things slow can be tough when there are a lot of pressures, many of which are self-imposed (says my husband). I probably don’t need to make all of the nuts that I usually make, or bake all of the cookies we normally do, but I like doing these things and it makes me happy to give hand-made gifts. I also find that these simple things are what bring us so much joy around the holidays; these hand-made gifts and giving back.

We decorated the house slowly this year and I really think that made it even more enjoyable. Creating the wreaths together as a family, making pinecone ornaments to hang on the tree and then wrapping the staircase in garland. Each step was on a different day and I think that made us enjoy the process even more.

These are some of my favourite projects from this year as well as a few old favourites from our hand-made holidays in the past.

Wire & Pine Wreath

Full Disclosure … this is not the wreath we made, but it is the one that inspired us to make the other two

Ok so I am pretty new at this whole wreath making thing, but growing up my mom was always making cute pine-cone wreaths and things like that so I’ve been exposed to these DIY projects all my life. Plus it helps keep the holidays special when we come together as a family to make decorations or bake together.

This year my husband came up with the idea to use our broken tomato cages and peony cages to make our wreaths out of. The circle worked really well and gave us a few variations of sizes.

What You will Need:

Tree Trimmings (fresh works best so they are still pliable)
The circle part of a flower cage or tomato cage
Wire Cutters
Green Zip Ties
Ribbon

Steps

Cut out the circle portion of the tomato cage with wire cutters (be careful when doing this)
Wrap your trimmings around the cage in a circle securing the branches with the zip ties as you go. You can make the wreath as full or as thin as you like but adding branches.
Tie a bow either at the top or bottom of the wreath to add colour.

Pinecone Decorations

This year we took our “pine tree” back to it’s roots by decorating it with ribbon and glittering pine cones that were made by all of us.

I took one look at our breakable ornaments this year (the glass balls and things like that, that didn’t have a tone of meaning) and thought … I am not policing this tree all day, so we are doing something different this year.

We put all the meaningful ornaments at the top so they wouldn’t get pulled on or broken and then covered the tree in our hand-made pinecone ornaments and I have to say that this is my favourite tree yet! It’s simple, elegant safe to touch (cuz our kids won’t keep their hands off of it) and is full of meaningful decorations that we made.

For details on how I made the Pine Cones with Ribbons Head on over to the DIY Christmas Post

We also made pinecone ornaments with the kids at the Holiday with Heart Event using pinecones we found in our neighbourhood park, silver & Gold Glitter , some white paint and silver pipe-cleaners. It was such a fun craft and the kids were so proud to hang these on the tree!

Christmas Candied Nuts Gifts

This is another wonderful recipe that my mother-in-law passed on, she’s been making these as gifts for even longer than I have and they truly are a huge hit with our family and friends each year.