Swirling Away Everyday! Everyday life: Crafts & Christmas

Crafts and Christmas are always a good combination! And this weekend I had such a creative weekend! Pfff I can't even believe it myself.

What did I do this weekend:

1) transformed my lovely Magnolia branches from a summer piece to a Christmas piece.

Before

After

I still had a voucher of a garden center where there is a huge Christmas market each year! The deal on the voucher was that is cost € 10 but was worth € 20! So I bought some items to make my perfect Christmas piece! I also found some old items (that happened to be red and purple) and voila!

So here we go! What do you need:
- some branches, I used these Magnolia branches that I already had but pine branches would also be a good option
- a nice vase
- some silk or real flowers and Christmas ornaments.
- clip on flowers
- berry branches
- stars
-Christmas balls
- Orchids
- beaded pendulum
- small ribbons
- candle holder
- some voile or large ribbon in order to make sure there is no gab between the vase and decoration. So basically you use it as stuffing...
- and you will need some Styrofoam or floral foam to fasten everything

How to start:

1) put the foam in the vase, quantity depending on the diameter of the vase

2)cover the vase with voile (I laid the branches on top of the vase instead of putting them into the foam. If you want to put the branches vertical you will need to fasten them into the foam and therefore cover the vase with voile at the end)

3)wrap the beaded pendulum around the branches

4) fasten the flowers and berry branches

5) Once you have done this you can start adding the other ornaments and
ribbons for the final touch! (An other nice idea is to wrap some yarn/threat around the branches, the rougher the yarn the cooler. This was also use in the "before" picture).

Well basically this is it! Most important is that you make a plan before you start and buy the ornaments based on your plan, and once you start it is pretty easy!

2) I made this super cool Christmas ornament for which I used the tutorial from Cocalores! Below a preview, the complete post will follow later this week.