How to waste less this Christmas

There is an increasing number of people who yearn for quieter, more reflective and more creative approach to Christmas. This includes those who enjoy creating homemade Christmas decorations or gifting tasty homemade treats – such as shortbread or chocolate truffles (recipe below) – to friends and family.   

So turn off your social media notifications for a few days and indulge yourself in more comforting pursuits in the lead up to  Christmas. 

Homemade christmas decorations

Tour guide and creative at the Rediscovery Centre, Jacqui Kinsella is a big fan of homemade Christmas decorations, using bits and bobs around the house including broken Christmas baubles, old gift-wrap, wire clothes hangers and fabric. She also suggests a Christmas decoration swap pop-up in workplaces as a good way for people to exchange old decorations and get ideas for new ones. 

For sustainable Christmas wreaths, Jacqui suggests making the base from a wire clothes hanger, reshaped into a circle or using a large plastic lid - like one from a 10-litre paint container - with a hole cut out of the centre.   

If you choose the clothes hanger option, try weaving foraged twigs around it, adding slices of dried lemons, cinnamon sticks, leaves and moss for the finishing touches. And if you are using the plastic lid as the base for your wreath, Jacqui suggests wrapping layers of fabric around it and using strips of colourful fabric, tied in knots for the finishing touches.

Jacqui also has a clever way of re-using broken baubles by glueing cut outs of colourful paper or fabric onto them.  “Or you can wrap damaged baubles in tartan, denim or gingham fabric and add cinnamon sticks to them to make them look like mini Christmas puddings,” she says. 

Angels' delight

Polish-born, Cork-based artist and designer, Joanna Kaminska  (jokamin.com) began making salt dough angels (see recipe below) and selling them in local markets some years ago.

“Salt dough angels are lovely gifts for people and they are fun to make with children,” says Joanna. And, while she now sells paintings, prints, silk scarves and cushions, she says friends still have the salt dough angels she made for them years ago. 

Using unused or worn out clothing with interesting patterns as wrapping for Christmas presents is Kaminska’s sustainable Christmas tip. “The Japanese practice of wrapping gifts in cloth called furoshiki is a really nice way of using old fabric that the person you are gifting can use again,” she explains. 

Elsewhere, Nadine Guerlain (@nadinelovespaper) is a Dublin-based illustrator who makes hand-illustrated cards, retro-inspired paper craft kits and hand-painted vintage plates and teacups for sale at markets (instructions below). 

“Every piece is made with sustainability in mind,” says Nadine, who suggests these 3D stars can  be used on their own as a table decoration, or sewn together to make a Christmas garland.  Nadine also suggests painted and varnished air dried clay (such as DAS) shapes can make attractive Christmas tree decorations.  

How to make chocolate truffles

• Ingredients: 100g milk chocolate drops, 25g of butter, 25g of icing sugar, 50g of plain cake crumbs, 4 tablespoons of chocolate sugar strands). 

1. Put 100g of milk chocolate drops and 25g of butter into a heatproof dish over a saucepan of just boiled water.  Make sure the bowl doesn’t touch the bottom of the saucepan.

2. Stir chocolate and butter together until they have melted and carefully lift the bowl off the saucepan.

3. Sift 25g of icing sugar into the melted chocolate and butter. Add the 50g of cake crumbs and mix well together. Leave to cool in the bowl.

4. Put the chocolate strands on a plate and scoop up a teaspoon of mixture and put it into the strands, using your finger to roll around until each truffle is completely covered in strands.  Place into small paper cases and cool in fridge for 30 minutes.  Store in an airtight container.

How to make paper stars for Christmas decorations

1. Choose your paper – vintage magazine pages, origami paper, old books, posters or heavy wrapping paper – and cut it into squares. 

2. Place each square of paper with the front-facing side up. Fold this in half, open it and fold it in half again in the other direction. Open it up.

3. Turn the piece of paper over. Fold along one diagonal. Open it up and fold along the other diagonal.  Open up your paper square again.

4. Cut halfways along the lines created by the horizontal and vertical folds on all four sides.  

5. With the side that will be seen facing down, create triangles from the tip of the corners to the diagonal fold lines.  Overlap the triangles halfway over each other by gently shaping the points and glue them together. 

6. Make a second star by repeating steps one to five.  Place your two stars back to back at a 45 degree angle to see where they overlap and glue these areas together and hold until the glue sets.