How To: Natural Festive Decorations For Your Christmas Gifts
We can't think of anything more festive than the aroma of dehydrated citrus decorations added to your furoshiki gift wraps.
As well being all natural and compostable when Christmas is over, these decorations are a fun activity to make to level up your sustainable Christmas gift giving this year.
We're also adding salt dough decorations to our furoshiki gift wraps this year because they're also very easy make and they always turn out beautiful.
Use plants, flowers, leaves and whatever natural beauties you can find in your garden or local park to make your present smell delicious too.
Take a look at Wrapuccino suggestions:
Christmas Dehydrated Citrus Decorations
INGREDIENTS/ MATERIALS:
5-6 oranges
2 packets of cinnamon sticks
1 bunch of eucalyptus leaves or others
Natural coloured cotton or jute string
METHOD:
Slice the oranges into thin slices 4mm thick. Remove any pips and place them on 2 large baking trays lined with a sheet of baking paper.
Bake in the oven on a low heat at 120° for 2 1/2 to 3 hrs. Keep an eye on them to prevent them from burning, you're looking for a nice golden orange colour and all of the orange flesh to be dehydrated. Half way through the cooking process flip them over so they dehydrate on the over side.
Remove them from the oven and allow to cool completely on a cooling rack.
Use a skewer to poke a hole through the top of a citrus slice under neath the rind. Thread a piece of string roughly 30cm long through and tie a knot. Attach a cinnamon stick, eucalyptus leaves and knot again to secure it in place across the top of the citrus slice. Leave the two strings long for attaching to the tree in a bow.
Salt Dough Christmas Decorations
The salt dough ornaments are so easy to make! We couldn't not add them here as they make very impressive additions to your fabric gift wraps.
Plus, you don’t even need to paint them but if you want to make them different colours, simply just paint them after they are done baking.
INGREDIENTS/ MATERIALS:
1 Cup Salt
2 Cups Flour
3/4 Cup Water (maybe a little more)
If you'd like scented decorations, add 2 teaspoons of: ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, ground ginger, ground clove.
Star/Christmas Tree cookie cutter
Natural coloured cotton or jute string
METHOD:
Begin by mixing the flour and salt together.
Add the water until it starts to form a dough.
If it feels a little dry, you can add more water. Add one tablespoon at a time. If it is too sticky, then add a little more flour in.
Knead the dough until it forms a soft ball. You will need to knead for at least 5-10 minutes to get it to a good consistency. Roll it out to about 1/2 inch in thickness.
Using your Christmas cookie cutters, cut out different shapes for your salt dough ornaments.
Using a straw, make a hole in the top of the ornament for where you would like the twine to hang.
Bake for 1-2 hours. If your ornaments are not completely dried through when you pull them out put back in for another hour. The baking time will vary greatly depending on the size and thickness of your ornaments. Larger ornaments will take longer whereas smaller ornaments will take less time. You can also let them air dry for a day before baking and this will cut down on the baking time.
Plants and Flowers' Decorations
Although a gift wrapped in fabric is already quite a spectacular piece of art, we can still decorate it with whatever plants you have in your garden - choose those without thorns - pine, skimmia, thyme, eucalyptus - they will make your presents smell lovely too.
Enjoy! and let us know how it went!
Check our Christmas furoshiki fabric wraps collection