Make new from old – quick and easy Christmas craft tutorials

The darker and colder it gets outside, the cozier and cozier it gets inside. When, if not at Christmas time, is it appropriate to decorate the whole apartment? Whether subtle, stylish, kitschy, traditional or whatever, hardly anyone can do without decorations. Not even I and I am very practical in this regard. For me, the motto is: less is more! This is probably because I am a bit lazy. On the other hand, I have no desire to spend tons of money on things that I only need a few weeks a year. If you're feeling the same way, I've got craft tutorials here that don't require a lot of materials and don't take a lot of time. Almost everything you need for this, you probably have at home, find it on your winter walk or can quickly buy it at the nearest supermarket.

What you need:

• a selection of thin twigs
• Wool scraps or yarn
• Wire or hot glue gun
• Scissors

Lay the branches in position, that is, in our case, in the shape of a tree - that is, a triangle and a small trunk at the bottom. Since the branches should be quite thin, you can easily cut them with normal household scissors.
Now you have two options: Either you tie the branches together with a wire or yarn, or you glue them with the hot glue gun, depending on what you find prettier. If you choose the glue option, you'll need to allow a little time for it to dry.

Now comes the part where children can best help: Wrapping the trees with the wool. Again, there are several ways to do this. Either you do it very precisely: from top to bottom vertically or horizontally, or you are wild and just wrap criss-cross on it - just as you like.

How much wool you wrap around a little tree is also up to you, there is no right or wrong. My son, for example, wrapped his tree very thickly, I was more discreet. Just do what you like best and be creative.
You can use the little trees as Christmas tree decorations or gift tags, for example. What we have done with it, you see a little later.

• Paper (whatever you have: newspapers, an old book or sheet music; we also used coffee filters)
• Glue stick (e.g. Uhustick)
• Scissors
• Pen
• Thread (e.g. sewing thread)
• Cookie cutter (star, tree...)

Place the cookie cutter on your paper, trace the outline and then cut it out. Of course, you can save time by layering more paper and cutting it out together.

Fold your figure once and then glue it together in the middle. Now take the next figure and fold it the same way again. But this time you do NOT glue it in the middle. No, you glue it on the previous figure. And so on, you take a figure, fold it in the middle and glue it on the previous one. Do this at least eight to ten times.
Finally, take your thread, put it in the middle and glue the two sides together.

Now carefully unfold your figurine to make it three dimensional. We hung our coffee filter trees and newspaper stars on our Barbara branches. But of course you can also use them as Christmas tree decorations.

• Yarn
• thin sewing thread
• Needle
• Paper (whatever you have at home, I cut up an old book)
• Oranges
• Wool Christmas trees (how to make them, I described in the first tutorial)

First you need to dry the orange slices. There are several ways, which I have described here, for example. The fastest way is to put the one-centimeter-thick slices in the oven at 100 degrees Celsius for a good two hours. Don't forget to turn them over and over again!

Cut out stars from paper. Just use what you have at home. Colorful clay paper, coffee filters or sheet music would work very well, for example. To make the garland, poke a hole in each orange with the needle and thread the thin sewing thread through. Knot the yarn and thread another orange slice or paper star on the same thread. To thread the stars, poke two holes at the top prong and sew back and forth. If you don't do this, the stars will slip later.

Attention: Do not hang too many oranges on one thread, this would be too heavy for the thin yarn and would tear. Depending on how long you want your garland to be, thread about four thin threads with orange slices and stars. Now cut a long string from the thick yarn. How much exactly depends on how long you want your garland to be. For example, if you want to hang it in front of the window, the yarn should correspond to the length of the window. Now knot your orange star threads and your wool Christmas trees alternately to the thick yarn. That's it, your garland is ready.

It makes a very good door or window decoration, but also looks very pretty on the wall. And the best thing is, thanks to the oranges it smells quite wonderful and spreads a wonderful Christmas scent throughout the apartment.

I hope I could inspire you a little. If you don't feel like crafting but like cooking, you should visit Nadja 's site. If you haven't had enough of crafting yet, you can find more crafting instructions here. And if you want to live out your creativity in photography, you'll find it here. Wonderful photo motifs can be found again this year in the magical Lumagica light park in the Hofgarten.

Enjoy the remaining Advent season with your loved ones and don't get carried away by the pre-Christmas stress. I wish you a Merry Christmas and all the best for the coming year!