4 Sustainable Tree Decorations to Make

These beautiful hand decorated cardboard decorations are so mindful to make and use few materials. Cardboard boxes, paint markers and yarn are all you need to make a whole host of decorations to adorn your tree. You can easily coordinate the colours to your theme and even personalise them, making them truly unique decorations.

You Will Need
* Cardboard
* Paint Markers
* Scissors
* Yarn
* Hole Punch

Step 1: Draw some shapes for the decorations on some card and cut out. You could do circles, loose lemony shapes, leaf or diamond shapes.

Step 2: Draw your design on the decoration in pencil and then fill in with pen. Simple spots, stripes and stars are all quick, easy and work beautifully.

Step 3: Using a hole punch, punch a hole in the top of the decoration, roughly 0.5cm from the edge.

Step 4: Cut a 20cm length of yarn and then thread it through the hole and knot the ends together to finish.

Who doesn’t love yarn?! These gorgeous tactile decorations are the perfect project for using up all those odd lengths of yarn in your stash.

You Will Need
* Cardboard
* Yarn
* Printed Templates
* Scissors
* Hole Punch
* Glue Gun
* Stick on Stars

Step 1: Use the templates to cut out the shapes from cardboard.

Step 2: Use a hole punch to punch out a hole for hanging.

Step 3: Cut roughly a 20cm length of yarn and thread through the hole and knot to fasten.

Step 4: Wrap yarn around the tree shape firmly, trying not to leave any gaps, and use a few dots of hot glue to keep it place.

Step 5: Stick on the stars and press firmly in place.

Winding yarn is a wonderfully therapeutic thing to do. This could be a lovely project to add to a little every year, making your garland a beautiful decoration that evolves over time.

You Will Need
* Cardboard
* Hole Punch
* Yarn
* Scissors
* Ruler
* Pencil

Step 1: Draw a round shape onto the cardboard and cut out.

Step 2: Using a ruler, measure and draw a line, marking half the circle. Then half that, and then once more, so that you end up with 8 equal triangles. Then measure roughly 0.5cm from the edge of the circles and mark it. Cut little slits where these marks are, or use a hole punch to punch holes on these points.

Step 3: Punch a hole in the top of each circle for hanging.

Step 4: Leaving a little tail of yarn at the back (approx. 3cm long), wind the yarn through the slits making different shapes as you go. Experiment with different patterns by winding in different directions. When using the hole punched pieces of card, thread the yarn onto a darning needle and lace through the holes to create patterns.

Step 5: Tie the ends of the yarn together at the back and trim.

Step 6: Cut a 3m piece of yarn and then thread the decorations on at 10cm intervals. Knot the decorations onto the yarn to keep them in place.

Beautiful decorations needn’t be expensive, and this thrifty tree topper proves just that. Simply made with cardboard, paint and twine this topper is sure to take pride of place on your tree.

You Will Need
* Cardboard
* Template
* Twine
* Scissors
* Acrylic Paint or Paint Pens
* Glue Gun
* Empty Toilet Roll Tube

Step 1: Print out the star template and then cut it out - the dotted lines show the direction that the shapes will be glued at.

Step 2: Draw around the template shapes and neatly cut out.

Step 3: Paint every other shape using acrylic paints or paint pens and leave to dry.

Step 4: Use a glue gun to glue the edge of the shapes together to form the star.

Step 5: Glue some twine along the edges of the star.

Step 6: To make a slot for the tree top to go in, glue a toilet roll to the back of the star.