A trio of festive door decorations

CREATE A WARM WELCOME

Instead of a traditional wreath, try making one of these original festive decorations for your front door this Christmas

SPARKLES

You will need

 Snowflake wooden photo decorations, £5.95 for eight, Baker Ross  Pinecones  Acrylic paint in White and Pastel shades  Paintbrush  Iridescent biodegradable glitter  Scissors  Glue gun

1Paint four wooden snowflake decorations with pastel acrylic paints. While the paint is still wet, sprinkle on iridescent glitter and leave to dry.

2Use a brush to apply white acrylic paint to five pinecones to create a frosted effect. Sprinkle with glitter then leave to dry. 3 Use a glue gun to attach a length of coloured organdie ribbon to the top of each pinecone. Tie lengths of ribbons to the tops of the wooden snowflakes and trim the ends. Try to use ribbons that match the colours you have painted your snowflakes.

4Place the snowflakes and pinecones flat on your work surface and arrange them at different lengths so that none are on the same level.

5Once you’re satisfied with the effect, tie all the ribbons together at the top with a neat knot and then trim the ends so that they are the same length.

STARBURST

You will need

 Wooden stars, £4.95 for 180, Baker Ross  6mm organdie ribbon, £1.60 for 8m; Silver berry picks, £3 for 81; 15mm grosgrain ribbon in Grey, £3.40 for 5m, Hobbycraft  Acrylic paint in White  Iridescent biodegradable glitter  Glue gun  3 fir branches  3 holly sprigs  5 lengths of ivy  Florist wire

1Begin by making your frosted stars. Paint wooden stars with white acrylic paint and, while the paint is still wet, sprinkle them on both sides with iridescent glitter and leave to dry. Once dried, use a glue gun to attach the stars to three lengths of organdie ribbon. 2 Cluster together three fir branches with the longest one in the centre. Bind the tops of the stems together using florist wire. Add the lengths of ivy, then place three sprigs of holly on top, with the longest one in the centre. Bind the tops of the holly and ivy to the top of the fir branches with florist wire.

3Place the three ribbons of stars on top of the foliage and bind them using florist wire to attach them to the foliage stems.

4Place clusters of silver berry picks at intervals on top of the foliage and bind their wires around the foliage stems to attach them. Spread out the berries to create a starburst effect.

5Finally, tie a grosgrain ribbon bow at the top of the decoration to hide the florist wire binding.

Essential Connect 140 warm white connectable net lights (2m x 1.5m), £19.99, Lights4fun

PRETTY P OINSETTIA

Yo u w i l l n e e d

 A4 Seawhite MDF board, £3; Parsley fern pick, £5, Hobbycraft  Emulsion paint: we used Velvet Ribbon and Fortune Green, £2.03 for 30ml, Dulux  Paintbrush  Artist’s paintbrush  Royal Metallics paint in Gold, £2 for 50ml, Protek  A4 felt sheets, plain and glittered  Scissors  Rust-Oleum Elegant Metallic spray paint in Gold, £8 for 400ml, Dunelm  Glitter glue  Glue gun  Ribbon  Staple gun

1Paint an A4 piece of MDF with two coats of purple paint. Once dry, lightly dip a dry paintbrush in teal paint and gently drag it horizontally across the surface of the sign to create a distressed effect. Once the paint has dried, use a fine artist’s paintbrush and gold paint to write ‘Merry Christmas’ on the centre of the sign. Use a stencil if you prefer. 2 Take a faux parsley fern pick and separate the individual fern leaves. Spray six of them on both sides with gold paint and leave to dry.

3While the paint is drying, cut out the petals for your felt poinsettias. For each flower, you will need to cut five large petal shapes and five smaller petal shapes from coloured felt. Scale them up or down to create larger and smaller poinsettias for your sign. We made two large, four medium and two small poinsettias.

4Once you’ve cut out all your petal shapes, outline the edges of each petal using glitter glue and allow them to dry thoroughly.

5To assemble the poinsettias, cut a disk of felt 3cm in diameter to use as the base. Use a glue gun to attach the larger petals around the disk, slightly overlapping them as you go. Next attach the smaller petals on top of the larger ones in the same way, but slightly offsetting them so the points of the smaller petals fit between the gaps in the larger petals, as shown. 6 Take a sheet of green glitter felt and cut four large and four small holly leaves from it. Then cut eight 1cm diameter disks from the green glitter felt and glue one disk to the centre of each felt poinsettia. Take a sheet of gold glitter felt and cut two large and two small ivy leaves from it.

7To assemble your sign, glue three gold fern leaves, all pointing outwards, to the top left corner of the sign. Repeat for the bottom right corner. Place one large, one medium and one small poinsettia on top of the fern leaves, on both the top and bottom corners, and glue into position. Next, glue a small poinsettia on the top right and bottom left corners. Tuck four holly leaves beneath the small poinsettias and stick into place. Finally, glue a large and a small ivy leaf beneath the two small poinsettias.

8To finish, use a staple gun to attach two lengths of matching ribbon to the back of the sign and tie them into a neat bow at the top. Your sign is now ready to hang.