Wondering how to make your festive season that bit greener by making recycled Christmas decorations?

There are lots of ways to make them reusing waste paper, scrap fabric, or random other things from around the home and garden – and they’re certainly not all just for kids.

Here are some of our favourites:

• Want to have a starry, starry night? Use twigs from the garden to make window or tree decorations. (Or if your garden is as cold & icy as ours, any other sticks will suffice – perhaps the project to use up your hoarded collection of “disposable” chopstics or lolly pop sticks?)
• If you fancy something a little shinier, make stars from old foil cake or pie tins instead.
• Or if you prefer your stars in a classy matte, how about making these Christmas fairy light shades from old brown/manila envelopes?
• Brown paper shopping bags – particularly ones with a Christmas themed print on them – can be made into decorative Christmas stockings.
• Or if you’d prefer to have fabric stockings to stuff full of treats, how about recycling a pair of old jeans for a modern look?
• Smaller scraps of old clothes or fabric can be upcycled into scrap fabric wreaths – these ones made from scraps of old felted wool clothes are just lovely.
• If you’re more of a paper person, this origami Christmas wreath could be made with coloured waste paper – envelopes from Christmas cards for example.

• Or if buttons are more your thing (mmm, buttons), you could make this fab wreath instead – if you loosely sewed the buttons onto the card, you could snip them off to reuse as buttons as you needed them for actual buttoning purposes!
• If all these are a bit too grown up for you – or you’d like a project to keep the kids busy while you’re assisting Santa, how about using wine corks to make reindeer tree decorations?
• Or if you’ve still got last year’s Christmas cards, they could use them to make a cute bunting banner.
• Finally, a couple of our favourite ideas for revamping existing decorations that are getting old or tired: I love the look of these fabric wrapped Christmas items (I’ve done a similar thing before with a single colour frogged yarn – very pleasant).
• Or, turn plain baubles into fun (angry!) characters with a little paint.

Ok, put your hand up if you’re cold.

I’m guessing everyone in the northern hemisphere is waving at their computers right now. It’s pretty brr.

On my frugal/cooking/growing blog The Really Good Life, I’ve written about the five frugal ways I’ll be keeping warm this winter – but one thing I missed off is the list is draught excluders (aka draft dodgers).

I used to have a black fun fur one – which matched our black real fur cats – but it was in the days when the cats were more territorial … and amorous. I’ll let you finish that lovely story yourself. Last year, after we’d just moved into our new house, there were so many draughts and bits of bad insulation that draft excluders seemed pointless so I didn’t bother. This year though, game on!

So what have you made them from? Recycle This regular BookstoreBabe made some from her daughter’s old heavy patterned tights and rag-bag stuffing – but warned that they stretch! I’ve also heard of people making them from old woolly jumper sleeves or trouser legs – just sew up the ends and stuff.

I imagine the duvets from the other day would do the job too without any sewing or cutting need – just tied into a roll. And don’t forget, it’s not won’t be sitting on it, so it doesn’t need to be stuffed with soft filling like a cushion or pillow – you can use newspaper, carrier bags or stuff like polystyrene foam peanuts — anything to provide a bit of bulk.

Have you made your own? What did you use? Send pics/links if you’ve got them!

We’ve had an email from Shannon:

We’ve got loads of net curtains from the days before we all realised they were naff! They’re chintzy and are nylon or polyester or something. Do you have any recycling ideas?

If they’re still in good condition, you could try passing them on – ask on Freecycle/Freegle or ask a charity shop if they’ll take them (a charity shop with a lot of furniture or a furniture specific charity would probably be best, if there is one near you). Most charity shops have a “rag man” for items they accept but can’t sell – so if they can’t sell them, at least they’d get into the textile reclamation cycle that way.

If they’re not in good enough condition to be passed on – and a wash doesn’t revive them enough, the better condition parts maybe be suitable for reusing or upcycling.

Lee Meredeith – aka Leethal – used lacework doilies as stencils for decorating plain picture frames for her wedding — if there are parts of the net curtain with a nice design, they could be used for something like that. I think I’ve seen a similar method used to decorate clear jam jars recently – making them into shabby chic candle/tealight holders.

Or if there are any focus-point designs, you could cut those out and use them as doilies for other craft projects – if there isn’t enough of the real thing outside where you are, these snowflake doilies are a fun festive window decoration. Sticking with the fabric stiffening idea, these bowls are fun too.

Any other suggestions?

We’ve covered sheets & valances and feathers & down – but not intact duvets themselves.

I was thinking about duvets last week – not just because I spent much of Thursday wrapped up in one and the rest of the week wishing I was wrapped up in one, but also because I saw this insulating blind tutorial. Admittedly, it’s for a quilted throw more than a duvet but a summer weight duvet would work in a similar way.

Duvets in good, clean condition can be given to charity shops/thrift shops or shelters/refuges to be reused as duvets.

Ones in less good condition can be turned into other bedding such as mattress protectors/under-blankets or pillow protectors.

Any ideas on how to recycling?

We’ve had an email from Louise W:

Our church hall has accrued dozens and dozens of tea towels over the years, I don’t know where they come from. We usually tear the tatty ones in half and use them for cleaning rags but I was wondering if you had any ideas for other things we could do with them. Some of us are good at sewing so could make things with them for our jumble sale.

If it’s a straight-up surplus of good condition towels, I’m sure there would be local shelters/re-homing community groups who would love a bulk donation – either for use in their own kitchens or to be give out to those in need of even though most basic household supplies.

If they’re too tatty for donating, the decent parts of the fabric can be upcycled in a number of ways – I’ve seen aprons made from cute dish towels, cafe-style curtains/blinds for kitchens, baby bibs (especially if the towels are super soft from frequent washing) or quilt-style hot pad tablemats using a few different towels.

Finally, if they’re far too tatty for any of that, they do make great dishclothes/cleaning rags and can be shredded to be stuffing for small toys or the like.

Any other recycling ideas? Practical as well as creative crafty ones?