DIY Natural Christmas Decorations
Wouldn’t it be so nice to return to a simpler time, when the holiday season was not all about the hustle and bustle. DIY is a good way to do just that! We have lots of ideas to add festive touches to your home with DIY natural Christmas decorations that you make. Many of the items can be found in your backyard, or by foraging in a wooded area. I was able to find lots of natural items by walking around my garden and taking a walk through a local wooded area.
The best part is most of these DIY ideas are family-friendly and budget-friendly too. If you do a little bit of searching for natural Christmas decorations, there are tons of round-up style articles that include the same ideas over and over and have you jumping all over the internet. The projects we include are all right here, so no jumping around necessary.
With a little bit of creativity, a glue gun and some spray paint, you can DIY most anything.
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Supplies for Homemade Christmas Decorations
The first thing you need to do is gather your supplies. It’s a great idea to involve children in this step. Take a walk through your gardens and backyard to see what you can find. Keep in mind the supply list and any other natural elements you can think of. If you can’t find much in your backyard, take a nature walk around a local park or wooded area. That’s called foraging. Remember to be responsible when you forage. Only take what you will use with the least amount of disruption to the forest floor. If you are worried about bugs or wee critters hanging out in the items you collect from outdoors, you can seal the items in a plastic bag with the air squeezed out for several days.
Natural Materials for Homemade Natural Christmas Decorations
- Acorns
- Pine needles
- Pine cones
- Pine branches, or other evergreen branches
- Hickory nuts
- Old bird nest (or faux)
- Twigs
- Holly berries
- Holly leaves
- Red twigs
- Feathers
- Eucalyptus
- Dried garden plant material and seed heads
- Tree branches and twigs
- Birch wood
- Wood slices
- Grapevine
- Rocks and stones
- Sweet gum balls
- Red berries (American cranberry bush viburnum, red current, some yews, burning bush, holly)
- Evergreen branches
- Scrap wood
- Pieces of tree bark
Other supplies:
- Cranberries for drying
- Citrus fruits for drying (oranges and/or lemons)
- Cinnamon sticks
- Whole cloves
- Star Anise
- Popcorn
- Grapevine wreath
- Grapevine balls
- Jute cord
- Raffia
- Burlap or other natural fabrics
- Ribbon
- Buttons
- Wooden beads
- Faux greenery
Tools That Come in Handy for DIY Projects
- Hot glue gun (this one comes with lots of glue sticks)
- Glue sticks
- Wood glue (safer, if children are involved)
- Pruners or garden scissors
- Floral Wire
- Floral wire cutter
If the ground is covered with snow, or it’s too late in the season to go foraging for fresh greens, faux is fine. Many of these items can be found in your local craft store. I have also added links to some of the items. For indoor projects that can be used again from year-to-year, faux greenery and berries are the preference.
Simple Ideas for DIY Christmas Decorations
I like to follow Facebook gardening groups because I get so many ideas. One day I was scrolling through and saw this post. I immediately knew I wanted to include it in this article. I was lucky enough to be able to contact the creator and he agreed to let me use his idea and pictures. Here we have Steve’s very festive creation using dried seed pods from milkweed plants.
After breaking the pods apart and dusting them off; use spray paint or acrylic paint to paint the seed pods in a color of your choice. At the same time, go ahead and paint a variety of seed heads (like coneflower, burdock or anything you can find).
Second, glue the seed pods to a small cardboard circle.
To finish up your design add a seed head.
These rustic flowers can be used to decorate wreaths, as natural Christmas ornaments, added to presents in the place of a bow, or in many different ways. Glue a stick (like a bamboo skewer) on the back and use them in your holiday porch pots. If it’s too late to get milkweed pods from your garden or neighborhood, you can order them from Etsy.
What about using a piece of tree bark and crafting a simple Christmas tree ornament, or adding it to a wrapped gift instead of a bow. In the example below, everything was just glued with a hot glue gun. Rustic, charming and easy peasy!
DIY Natural Christmas Decorations Using Wood Slices and Tree Branches
Wood slices can be used for a lot of natural decorations, including DIY Christmas ornaments, a wood slice wreath and many other ways. A friend and Gingham Gardens’ reader, Naomi, took my idea using wood slices (from this post) and made these adorable snowmen. She had her husband cut the wood slices with a power saw, but you can also purchase wood slices. For complete instructions for making wood slice snowmen, see the post linked above or below.
The hubs loves messing around with tree branches that have fallen in our backyard. I asked him if he would make some small log deer. He came up with these.
Although still considered easy, the directions for these deer are a little more detailed, but you can find the step-by-step directions in this post – Festive DIY Projects Using Tree Branches and Logs, along with some more ideas for using tree branches and logs in your Christmas decor.
Simple, Old Fashioned Christmas Decorations
If you’re old enough, you may remember stringing popcorn and fresh cranberries to make a garland for your Christmas tree. This is such a simple way to make a fresh garland to add to your Christmas décor.
Another simple garland can be made with pinecones and jute cord.
Quick Christmas Potpourri
Want your house to smell divine, make this Christmas Potpourri, add water and set it to simmer on your kitchen stove. Warning: do not let the water boil dry. The safer alternative is to use a small crock pot.
- Pine branches or pine scented essential oil
- Dried lemon or dried orange slices (fresh will work, if you are storing the potpourri)
- Fresh cranberries (or dried if you are gifting)
- Cinnamon sticks
- Whole cloves
- Star anise
For a simple DIY gift, add these items to a mason jar and add a jute or ribbon bow around the jar with a sprig of fresh greenery. If you are going to gift Christmas potpourri, be sure that the fruit is completely dried. Include a tag with instructions.
See DIY Christmas Crafts Using Twigs for some more adorable and easy homemade Christmas tree ornaments. These can also be used as gift tags or added to a wreath or garland.
Wreaths Using Natural Elements
It’s so easy to come up with natural wreath ideas for the holidays. For the one pictured below, start with a floral foam wreath form and just start gluing pinecones of different shapes and sizes, acorns and dried berries. You can finish off your natural wreath by adding jute bows like the picture below, or ribbon. Just play around and have fun with it.
The wreath below could not be easier to make. Start with a grapevine wreath form and add greenery (I used real evergreen sprigs, but faux is fine), berries and a bow. I like to lay my items on the wreath first and then hot glue them, or attach them with floral wire. Use your creativity.
Table Settings and Centerpieces Using Homemade Natural Christmas Decorations
We aren’t fancy at our house and we don’t even have a formal dining room. Doing something as simple as these cute napkin rings is an easy way to add festive charm to your buffet line or table settings. Simply wrap your silverware (or plasticware) in a paper or cloth napkin, add a few evergreen sprigs, holly and berries. Then tie it with a piece of jute or ribbon.
Gather your craft supplies and mess around until you get the look just right. That’s what I did when I was working on a centerpiece for our dining table. I started with a wood tray (from my decor stash), then added a fresh evergreen tree (cypress), and finished up with some pinecones, evergreen sprigs and faux berries. I added a candle but decided that wouldn’t be safe. An alternative to a real candle, is a flameless candle, or small lantern.
Next, I did some rearranging and added the adorable wood birdhouse and little red bird. Go ahead and raid your garden decor and I’ll bet you can come up with some cute items to add to your Christmas decorations.
The next idea is super easy, but adds so much character and works especially well if you don’t have much space. Mine is sitting on a small bathroom counter. Simply use a salad plate or saucer, place a candle in the middle and then add some mini pinecones, greenery and berries, or whatever you can come up with.
If you’re interested in making your own candles, check out Easy DIY Candle Making for step-by-step directions. Homemade candles make excellent gifts for teachers, co-workers, hostesses, friends, stocking stuffers, etc.
For the idea below, add scented pine cones, greenery and berries to a galvanized bucket, or a wicker basket would also work. With this simple idea, it’s fun to be creative. It’s so easy that you can play around with it until you create something you love. This is also a place where you can incorporate dried, spray painted seed heads from your garden.
So line up your favorite Christmas movies, round up your craft supplies, gather some friends and family members, and get ready for the best weekend crafting session ever! It’s a great way to kick off the Christmas season! Great gift ideas, teacher’s gifts, stocking stuffers, co-worker gifts, hostess gifts… the possibilities are endless.
Find more creative DIY ideas for Christmas crafting:
DIY Christmas Crafts Using Twigs
How to Make a Winter Planter
I hope you are inspired to add some simplicity to your holiday season by getting creative and making some of these DIY Natural Christmas Decorations. If you have questions, or ideas, please leave a comment below. This is a post that will evolve from year-to-year and we will always be adding more ideas to it.
Happy DIYing,
Joanna
p.s. Feel free to save the pictures throughout the post and the pins below to your favorite gardening board on Pinterest to remind you of the post later. If you hover in the upper left-hand corner of the picture, you’ll see the little Pinterest icon. Just click it and pin away. There are more pins to share below.
p.p.s I’d love to have you follow Gingham Gardens on Pinterest. Lots of great gardening ideas and tons of eye candy for gardeners. Gingham Gardens is also on Facebook. Stop by Gingham Gardens’ Amazon store!
Pins to Save to Your Favorite DIY Board:
