Two colourful DIY ideas to help you celebrate midwinter Christmas

01 Jul 2021

The weather outside is frightful, but inside it can be quite delightful so get decorating and spruce up your home for a midwinter Christmas feast. Yule be all set with these fabulous stars made from wooden craft pegs and fun clay pot Christmas tree décor. Deck your halls with these little stars and pots by attaching them to your snowy tree or hang the stars from the ceiling. If you want to decorate your home from top to mistletoe for midwinter Christmas, check out more ideas here.  

DIY Christmas clay pot bauble

You will need:

• Small terracotta clay pots
• Small paint brush
• Resene testpots in your choice of colours – Alayna used Resene Sea Fog, Resene Tree Frog, Resene Glitterbug and Resene Wild Thing
• A fine tip black pen
• A white gel pen
• Ribbon
• Needle

Step 1: Using white – Alayna usedResene Sea Fog, paint around the top of your clay pot adding drip lines to make it look like snow is sitting on the roof of your pot. Then continue with the white and paint the bottom rim of your pot. Paint an arch at the front for the door.

Step 2: Mix some of your white with your choice of green paint – Alayna mixed Resene Sea Fog with Resene Frog Tree, to make a pastel green.  Now use this colour to paint in the arch of the door. Use a festive colour, such as Resene Glitterbug, to paint an arch around the green door. Leave to dry.

Step 3: While the door is drying add some candy canes and peppermints surrounding the door – Alayna used Resene Sea Fog and Resene Glitterbug. She then mixed Resene Wild Thing and Resene Sea Fog together to make a pale yellow colour, which she added to the candy down the bottom by the door. 
When your door is dry, use a thin black marker to draw around the door or use a fine paintbrush and a testpot of Resene Black – Alayna gave hers some heart handles. Add some white lines to your candy with a white gel pen or use a fine paintbrush and a testpot of Resene White.

Step 4: Lastly, tie a knot to create a loop for your decoration to be hung from the tree.

Project and images Alayna Flighty

DIY colourful peg stars

You will need:

• 96 wooden half pegs used for crafting (72mm long)
• PVA glue
• Your choice of Resene testpots – Fleur used Resene Torea Bay, Resene Chetwode Blue, Resene Kamikaze, Resene Japonica, Resene Pirate Gold, Resene Galliano, Resene Green House, Resene Amulet, Resene Geronimo, Resene Rouge, Resene Wet N Wild and Resene Malibu
• Small craft brush

Step 1: For this project you need 96 wooden half clothes pegs to make 6 stars.

Step 2: Start by gluing the flat edges of the pegs together into pairs.  You need 8 pairs for one star.

Step 3: Next, glue 4 pairs of pegs into a cross.

Step 4: Paint each cross with your choice of Resene paint.

Step 5: Use PVA glue to glue one cross on top of the other to form a star, or you can use hot glue to speed up the drying time.  Place the darker of the two colours on top of the lighter colour. For example, Fleur placed Resene Torea Bay on top of Resene Chetwode Blue.

Step 6: Use a pin or Blu Tack to fix the stars to the wall and enjoy!

Project and images Fleur Thorpe

Published: 01 Jul 2021