Decorating your home for any holiday, and even more so for the New Year, is very simple. It just takes a little imagination. Of course, the easiest way is to hang around the house light garlands bought on the market or in a store, but it is much more interesting to decorate your house with “homemade products”. Dedicate a couple of evenings to this interesting activity, and your house will sparkle with new colors, and the children will finally break away from computers.
How to decorate your home for Christmas holidays
If you don’t feel like going to the store, and dad is “friends” with electricity, you can make a garland of light bulbs yourself. The do-it-yourself garland scheme is quite simple and anyone who has ever de alt with wires will easily figure it out. To make it stand out from the purchased version, each light bulb can be decorated with improvised material.
At the same time, be sure to make sure that all your "decorations" that you will cling to light bulbs and wires are made of non-combustible material. Well, for those who are in a difficult relationship with electricity or want to involve the younger generation in manufacturing, here are a few tips.
Paper garlands
Easierjust make paper garlands. For the New Year, it is customary to decorate not only the Christmas tree, but also the room as a whole. You can hang decorations in window and doorways, attach to the ceiling, cabinets or curtains.
The simplest paper garland is a chain of rings. To make it you will need:
- colored paper, double-sided is better;
- scissors;
- ruler and pencil;
- PVA glue or any other;
- glue brush;
Mark and cut the paper into small strips, approximately 80x10 mm in size. Take one strip and use glue to connect it into a ring. Thread the next strip into the resulting ring and fasten the ends, again forming a ring. Do the same with all other paper strips, forming a chain of the required length.
There is another easy way to make your own garlands. Cut out a large number of circles, stars, Christmas trees, fish or any other figures of your choice from paper. To simplify the work, you can use special perforation devices, which are sold in every needlework store. They are inexpensive, and the garland will turn out much neater. Using a sewing machine or by hand, sew all the received parts in one line. Use a strong thick thread, so your garland will be much stronger.
If you don't have a sewing machine or you don't know how to sew at all, don't worry. Just take two identical fragments andglue them together by laying a thread, ribbon or cord in the middle. Repeat the procedure until you get a garland of the desired length.
Thread decorations
Another very beautiful and simple decoration of any home is the Balloons garland. Making it yourself is very easy, you will need:
- small diameter balloons, 10-50 pieces - depending on how long you want to make the garland;
- several balls of colored threads, preferably natural, woolen or cotton;
- PVA glue;
- scissors;
- ribbon or string for stringing - the basis of the garland;
Take a balloon and inflate it to the desired size. Dilute the glue a little with water in a small bowl. Cut about 1–1.5 m of thread from the ball and soak it with the glue mixture. Squeeze a little so that the thread does not drip. Wind the thread around the ball like a ball, leaving gaps. You should get a beautiful openwork ball. Secure the end of the thread with glue and leave the structure to dry completely. After the glue is completely dry, pierce the bead and carefully pull it out through the holes.
Make as many of these balloons as you want, and use a large needle or knitting needle to assemble them onto a ribbon or string.
Felt garland
You already know how to make paper garlands. So that they serve you faithfully for more than one year - replace the paper with felt. This is a fairly dense and soft material, from whichvery easy to cut a variety of shapes.
If you know how to sew even a little, you can make a garland of soft toys. Using a stencil, draw and cut out two identical parts of the future element of the garland, for example, a Christmas tree. Sew the parts together, and place a little synthetic winterizer or ordinary cotton wool in the middle. If the characters of your future garland are animals, then sew button eyes on them and decorate them with ribbons. When all the elements are ready, connect them together by stringing them on a thick thread or ribbon. The garland is ready.
We use natural materials
If you like to collect cones, acorns, leaves and other gifts of nature, then the question of how to make garlands for the New Year is completely solved very simply. For example, you can make a decoration from cones, for this you need to prepare:
- cones (the right amount depends on the length of the garland);
- special loops - such devices at one end of which there is a loop, and the other is a screw, in everyday life it looks like a door hook loop; you can buy such things in needlework stores;
- acrylic paints, glitter;
- tape - the basis of the garland;
Paint the buds with white acrylic paint and sprinkle them with glitter, although you can leave them plain if you prefer natural materials. Using pliers, screw the loops into the bottoms of the cones and string the decoration onto the base tape. If you have a loopwas not found, then the lower part of the cones can simply be braided with a string or ribbon, forming a garland. Similarly, you can use acorns, rowan twigs and needles.
Knitted garlands
For those who are good at crocheting, decorating your home is a piece of cake - for example, you can knit a garland of snowflakes. Any needlewoman knows how to knit them - this is the same as small napkins, since there are a lot of patterns for them. Incredibly beautiful garlands are obtained from small amigurumi toys crocheted and stuffed with padding polyester. True, it will be necessary to start making such an ornament long before the New Year. This is not so simple, especially for beginner craftswomen.
Those who do not know how to knit should not despair either - an excellent colored garland will turn out from pompons. Making them is very simple - take colored threads and start winding them around three closed fingers of your left hand. When you get a fairly tight ring, remove the threads from your fingers and tie them tightly in the middle. Using scissors, cut the resulting loops and fluff the pompom.
If pom-poms are too much for you, you can make it even easier. Take a pack of cotton wool and roll medium-sized balls out of it. Color the cotton pom-poms with old, ruined shadows or colored pencils, the slates of which are rubbed into fine dust. Using a needle, string colored balls on a long thread - the garland is ready.
Edible garlands "Bird's Joy"
The most unusual do-it-yourself garland for the New Year is obtained from orange and apple circles, viburnum twigs and other edible details. Take a medium-sized orange or apple and cut it into circles with a sharp knife. Dip each slice in starch and place on parchment paper. Dry the fruit in a warm oven for 1.5–2 hours. Collect a garland on a thread. To make it even more beautiful, add dried rowan tassels, popcorn “beads” and rose hips or hawthorn to the composition. You can also use cereal rings.
The beauty of this decoration is that when the holidays are over, you can hang it on the street near the house or take it to the nearest park. Birds will peck all these treats with pleasure or gnaw on squirrels - after all, their winter diet is not so rich in vitamins.
And to please your family, you can make a garland of sweets, nuts and gingerbread. Gingerbread decoration will definitely not leave your children indifferent, especially if they themselves (with your help, of course) bake its ingredients. A variety of recipes can be found on the Internet or look into the cookbook of your beloved grandmother.
Garland with a surprise
Here's another idea how to make garlands for the holiday. If you have small children who love Kinder Surprises, you can collect testicles from prizes throughout the year. Before the holiday, use an awl to make holes in opposite ends of the "testicles" and string them on a thread in the form of a garland. Put a note inside eachwith a joke assignment. In the midst of the holiday, open the "testicles" in turn and fulfill the wish - joy and fun are guaranteed for everyone.
If you didn't succeed with Kinder Surprises, use ordinary matchboxes instead. Of course, to make them look like a New Year, they need to be painted or pasted over with colorful paper.
Conclusion
As you already understood, there are an incredible number of ways to make a garland with your own hands. You just need to show a little bit of imagination and perseverance. Believe me, a decoration made with your own hands, and even in close contact with children, will delight you much more than the most "fancy" purchased gizmos.
And most importantly, joint creativity will give an unforgettable festive atmosphere and provide everyone with a cheerful New Year's mood.
