For one reason or another Christmas and our Christmas decor have been pretty hit and miss this year either completely none existent or barely visible those mini and not so mini life crises seem to have struck with abundance and somewhat sabotaged all my Christmas plans, gifts are sparse, Christmas spirit and festive cheer are positively spartan, everything feels very make shift and half hearted. Christmas seems to have caught us napping this year so to make amends I have decided to go to town with the Christmas day meal and the Christmas table decorations to compensate hopefully for the otherwise abysmal lack of preparation.
Usually I don’t go a whole bundle on the Christmas table decorations themselves concentrating mainly on the meal and its accompaniments.Not that I don’t bother with with Christmas table decor no never think that just we tend to prefer to make our own Christmas centerpieces .one of the reasons for this this is that we don’t have an overly large dinning room table so with extra people always at the Christmas meal I am loath to sacrifice valuable space to large Christmas centerpieces that contribute nothing more than decoration to the table. I often display my Christmas table decorations on top of a tall pedestal so it leaves the table space beneath it free for other items, but more often than not my table centerpieces are movable in that they occupy the Christmas tables central spot while guests are arriving and sometimes even remain through appetizers and soup courses where table space is not too much at a premium, but as soon as tureens of vegetables ,gravy etc arrive the Christmas table decorations are removed to a side table. For this reason they can not be too elaborate that it takes too long to move them from the main table. Apart from that I just prefer simple and homemade ,I’d rather spend the fifty or sixty dollars a purchased centerpiece would cost on a nice wine or extra gifts.
For years now since my daughters first Christmas at school when they brought home decorated cardboard tubes that were meant to be snowmen and I decided to give them pride of place as the focal point of my Christmas table decorations, the next year it appeared there would be no Christmas themed decor items coming home from school and my daughters were disappointed that they could not contribute ,so we found a project of our own to make at home ,since then it has become a tradition that we always make time to to get together and create the Christmas table decor ourselves. And because we have come up with our own ideas for years and years now ,because I wanted to make something really special this year I decided to turn to the the internet for inspiration , well to tell the truth I was rather underwhelmed and have gone back to mulling over ideas from years gone by to see how our own ideas of Christmas table decorations can be re vamped.
Can’t count the number of different angels and Christmas trees we’ve fashioned over the years from the very simple to the quite elaborate (by our standards) that have each become the central feature of our Christmas table decorations.Where ever possible we always try to make our decor theme a Christmas tree of some kind or other and also where ever possible functional in some way too. But what ever the subject whether it is angels Christmas trees or carol singers we always make our table decor 3D so it is viewable in the same way from all sides of the circular Christmas table.
For example this choir of silver glitter decorated angels you see to the right above, are made with two angel cut outs ,one for the back and one for the front, attached together with circles of paper The larger angels also on some years have served to disguise wine bottles left out on the table for easier access, the smaller paper angels often concealing salt and pepper shakers so the Christmas centerpiece is not entirely there for Christmas decor only. Paper angels must be very popular as Christmas table decorations this year ,as even ” Martha” has a post on her website about making angels out of paper plates just like you were shown in kindergarten, and BHG are displaying a more elaborately designed paper angel, as an inspiration piece for your Christmas table decorations this year.
One of my favorite paper angel patterns that we have personally used as Christmas table decorations, is seen below,it is a very simple adaptation of the crepe paper peg angels that most of us made as children and were often hung from the tree by our parents.
To make your paper angels that little more elaborate than those depicted below and perhaps that little bit more grown up in appearance, if your Christmas table decorations are to appeal to grown ups only and perhaps you would like to keep them and make them worthy of being kept for use another year you can incorporate a more intricate angel wing pattern as seen below.
You would cut out the pattern 3 times, for each angel wing, the first being used as the base, the second pattern piece you should cut and curl slightly the long lower wing feathers. On the third piece you would cut and curl the long angel wing feathers yet again, then glue them on top of first set slightly out of position so they are obviously layered or you can remove the lower longer feathers from 3rd pattern piece altogether ,leaving just the portion with the shorter upper shoulder feathers each of these tiny feathers must be cut out individually gluing it with a tiny amount of glue to its respective position on top of second wing pattern. Remember to start from the bottom and work your way up, if you want you can also glue on a few sequins here and there to give just that little extra pizazz to your Christmas table decorations these tiny feather pieces should also be slightly curved over the back of a pencil or paint brush to give them that curved feather like appearance. You can add a piece of gold wire bent to form a halo over the angels head it you like.
There are two other posts in this series on Homemade/handmade Christmas table decorations.
