Crafty Christmas Ornaments from Your Garden
Bring nature’s décor indoors by making your own Christmas ornaments from the pods, seeds, vines, cones, berries and greenery in forest and garden. You’ll also need a glue gun, spray paint in red and forest green plus a can of white paint, preferably gritty, and white snowy glitter. A bit of ribbon and yarn finish the job.
To make an ornament like the one pictured, you will need, for the base, a vine, like thin grapevine or skinny branches, wound multiple times into a four-inch circle.
Use a glue gun to stick everything onto the backing. Start with prince’s pine, an evergreen lycopodium native to acid woodlands. If you want it greener still, lay it on newspaper and spray paint forest green
Arrange the prince’s pine on either side of the top of the wreath with a small sprig of boxwood in the middle. I used five little mini pinecones from a native Canadian hemlock on top, plus a little cluster of beautyberries, Callicarpa Americana, or berries of sumac, Rhus glabra. Again, spray them red for intense color.
The snowmen are made from buttonbush seedpods, Cephalanthus occidentalis, picked in the summer. Buttonbush is a wonderful native shrub that helps prevent flooding due to its extremely fibrous root system. Glue three different sized seedpods together top to bottom to make the snowmen. Then glue them in place on the wreath. Paint them and the wreath vines white. While the paint is still wet, sprinkle white snowy glitter over all the snowmen and the bottom of the wreath.
The snowmen’s buttons and eyes are beautyberries. Their carrot noses are thorns from greenbriers painted orange. Their arms are tendrils from grapevines. Their hats are an acorn and a magnolia leaf cut into a circle with five beauty berries on top.
You can glue a mini faux Christmas tree on either side of the snowmen or fashion trees out of the prince’s pine. Tie yarn around the snowmen’s necks for their scarves.
Attach a loop of ribbon to one of the backside wreath loops.
Most of these natural elements can be gathered in your yard or a walk in a park or woods. Buttonbush is the exception; get creative and make alternative snowmen with what Mother Nature provides you. Even sweetgum seeds could be painted to make bristly snowmen.