Xmas ideas 2011---number 11 Some simple, traditional decorations the family can make this weekend

Earlier this week my work colleagues and I were talking about holiday decorations that come out every year and how fun it is remembering when something from your childhood comes out again. One of us said he still had a garland made from Christmas foil milk bottle tops that he'd made as a child.  

Now I did try to find an image of that, but I did not find one, but I did find a description from the Internet: "I remember being five and in that class, making a pasta Christmas decoration, with red string and milk bottle tops. My Mother hangs it on the tree each year. The milk bottle tops were from my friend Peter's father's farm. They bottled their own milk and the bottling machine punched circles in the tin foil, leaving another handy decoration- a strip of foil with holes at regular intervals." http://rattlingon.typepad.com/rattling_on/2010/07/remember-the-days-of-the-old-schoolyard.html

Apparently foil milk bottle tops were printed in holiday colours and the foil made the lights reflecting on them sparkle, unfortunately these haven't been made for many years, so what good is this to you?  Well the idea of having things to bring out year after year for the memory of the thing is what's important here...so what I did find was:

A wreath made of bottle caps [maybe you would need to save these up for a year or ask a friendly bar tender to save you some] but it is a pretty wonderful item:

http://scribbles-corry.blogspot.com/2010_07_01_archive.html

A wreath made of old CDs might be more to hand, so might be an idea:

I have been saving old cotton spools and one of these days I'll have enough to make something like this:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/85655047/handcrafted-vintage-lookingchristmas

Or you could go with old wine corks [again, see your local wine bar, or save a lot of them]

http://www.thewoodenbee.com/wine-cork-garland/

Unless you have a stock of any of these items, you will be hard pressed to be able to make them this week, but here are a few you could easily do, a great way to get the kids to do something together other than watching TV or playing games on their game consoles, when they are dismissed from school for the holidays:

http://averycountrychristmas.blogspot.com/2010/05/christmas-garland-from-cranberries.html

And even if you can't make garlands or wreaths, you can always rely on the good, old traditional paper snowflakes:

Maybe you can even think of other things you have handy that can be made into decorations.

Have fun!

Only 10 more sleeps til Xmas, Gabrielle x