5 Botanical Christmas Projects to Make for Under £35

Gather scraps of fabric, offcuts of paper and old cardboard to create this sustainable advent calendar. Fill with chocolate coins or thoughtful gifts to celebrate the season.

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Our ceramic tree decorations make great table place settings! Paint in whatever colour matches your colour scheme and use a POSCA Pen to add the names of your guests.

Roll out balls of air-drying clay (these can be the same size or varying sizes), using a blunt needle create a hole through big enough for a piece of string. Leave to dry then paint in your desired colour.

Once fully dry, thread onto a length of string and they're ready to add to your tree!

The cracker design is made up of a repeat pattern so once you have mastered the motif, you can explore creating your pattern by repeating it in different directions to fill the area. Imagine you are building a jigsaw, draw into the space that you have created.

1. To illustrate your motif you will need to draw a waved line which will act as your main botanical branch. From this line you can draw smaller branches heading outwards from it.

2. At the end of each small branch draw your leaf shape and colour in, adding in a few more branches and leaves as you go to make your motif feel full. You can have your leaves heading in different directions to help create movement in the design.

3. Repeat your motif around the kraft blank until you have a full patterned cracker. Repeat onto your other crackers to create your set, you can see as long as the motifs repeat the key shapes they will look like a cohesive and well design pattern.

Print out your desired letter and cut it out to create a template.

Evenly roll out a piece of air-drying clay, then lay your template on top and cut around the letter with a knife. Use the end of a paintbrush or the tip of a pencil to create a hole big enough to thread a piece of twine through. Leave to dry.

Once dry, you may need to sand any rough edges. Using acrylic paint and a gold permanent marker, decorate your initial decoration. We've gone for leaves in two shades of green, pink flowers and gold accents.

Once fully dry, thread twine through the hole and your decoration is ready to hang!