Natural décor for Christmas 2021 is a top trend that will drive you to the outdoors for DIY decorating supplies. All things considered, heading outside to gather natural, decorative elements for Christmas décor is great for you and your family as well as for the earth.
In like manner, if you enjoy crafting your own Christmas decorations, nature sustainability will be your favorite in 2021. Since you’ll need to responsibly harvest and dry flowers, vines, herbs and more, you’ll want to plan to begin harvesting by late summer.
Let’s Begin
Which natural elements you’re able to discover and use in your decor, will, undoubtedly, depend on your location. In addition, keep your garden in mind as a source. Our neighbor generously shared these stems of garlic bulbils from her garden. As can be seen, they make a beautiful arrangement, can be hung, or can be added to wreaths or swags. A green or red glass vase subtlety says “Christmas.”
Glass, ceramic and metal ornaments and natural fabrics pair well for sustainable decor for Christmas. With this in mind, you can hang ornaments like our Holy Family silhouettes ceramic ornament and fabric stockings like our gray knit striped stocking from a new or repurposed peg rack.
Furthermore, you can extend your natural decor for Christmas with a second peg board featuring our succulent glass teardrop ornament, trolls (#1218718), newborn king message ceramic ornament (#1219324), and dried filler flower stems wrapped in a strip of frayed cotton muslin. For added interest, hang one succulent glass teardrop ornament from the front and one from the back. See our tutorial below to create a rust-look snowflake with our metal snowflake (#1204373). It’s available in-store or by contacting customer service at 989.652.9931 or customerservice@bronners.com.
Meanwhile, the do-it-yourselfer in you will delight in crafting our natural wreath. All in all, if you decide to carry the natural/sustainable theme over to your Christmas tree decor, you’ll want to make four to six of these wreaths total.
Natural Grapevine Wreath with Milkweed & Queen Anne’s Lace
Supplies
6-ft. to 8-ft. lengths of fresh or dried grapevine (Fresh grapevine is best as it bends for shaping the wreath. If you have to use dried grapevine lengths, soak them in water overnight, and then dry and shape them.) You will need 3 to 4 lengths per wreath.
About 2 feet of twine for each wreath to cut into a few ties to secure the wreath’s shape as you wrap the vines
Scissors
Glue gun & glue sticks
4 to 5 stems of dried Queen Anne’s lace (wild carrot) per wreath
2 dried milkweed stems per wreath
Two earthy/glittery shades of dimensional fabric paint (I used Tulip’s Beads in a Bottle in shades of Fools Gold Pyrite and Sunstone.)
Medium-sized pail or vase with a wide mouth to hold your stems of Queen Anne’s lace while you dot them with the dimensional fabric paint
Approximately 32-inch length of 1 1/2-inch wide unbleached, cotton muslin, frayed along the edges – one length per wreath
Directions
- First, stand the Queen Anne’s lace in the wide-mouth pail or vase. Dot the centers of several flowers on each stem with dimensional fabric paint. Let them dry for a couple of hours.
- While the Queen Anne’s lace is drying, hold the ends of 2 or 3 lengths of grapevine together and wrap them first in a small circle and then a larger circle. Leave the ends off to one side. Next, tie the wrapped vines with twine as needed, particularly along the bottom of the wreath to secure the shape. Lastly, trim the ends of the twine and the ends of the vines as needed for best appearance.
- Now place the milkweed stems, one reaching out and up in each direction from the bottom of the wreath. Secure each stem in the vines. Use glue if necessary.
- When the Queen Anne’s lace is dry, snap off all but 2 or 3 inches of the stem. Run a little hot glue up and down each stem and place the lace in the best openings in the bottom half of the wreath.
- Finally, thread the strip of muslin through the vines in an appropriate spot and tie a bow. (You may not need the entire length of muslin and cut it shorter.)
Rusted Metal Snowflake Ornament
I decided to try this rust technique on one of our metal snowflake ornaments (#1204373). In brief, it’s available in-store or by contacting customer service at 989.652.9931 or customerservice@bronners.com. The DIY is certainly inexpensive and easy and gives an object a rusted, natural look. Moreover, it works on a variety of materials including foam, plastic, metal, wood and cardstock.
Supplies
Metal snowflake ornament (or plastic or wood – surface should be flat)
Black acrylic paint
Brown acrylic paint
Cinnamon in a shaker dispenser
Paintbrush (about 3/8-inch brush for this project)
Parchment paper or plastic, disposable surface to paint on (something disposable the drying snowflake won’t stick to)
Directions
- First, place the snowflake on parchment paper or a plastic, disposable surface. (Avoid paper or cardboard surfaces the paint will stick to as it dries.)
- Then shake your paints and squeeze a blob the size of a silver dollar of each color onto one corner of the parchment paper.
- Using a paintbrush about the width 3/8 of an inch, blotch black paint all over the snowflake.
- Now clean your brush or switch to a clean brush and blotch brown paint all over the snowflake on top of the black paint.
- Sprinkle cinnamon lightly over the painted snowflake.
- Finally, pick up the snowflake and tap the bottom of it gently on your work surface to remove excess cinnamon. Lay it down on a clean part of your surface to dry.
- After the first side is dry, repeat the process on the other side.
DIY Rust Texture From Cinnamon Video Tutorial
Natural Decor for Christmas for Your Tree and Fireplace Mantel
Natural Decor for Your Christmas Tree
First of all, string warm white LED lights of your choice throughout your tree. Secondly, stick a handful of gathered birch branches throughout your tree. Then put your wreaths you’ve made in place as focal points for your tree decor.
Afterward, hang multiples of your ornaments throughout the tree: the Holy Family silhouettes ceramic ornaments, snowman metal disc ornaments (#1204069), wire star ornaments, metal snowflake ornaments you rusted (#1204373), and icelock glass ornaments.
To keep with our theme of natural decor for Christmas, we accordingly combined two 8-inch (#1216852) and one 7-inch (#1216853) twig bells to form our tree topper.
Accordingly, we chose a faux fur fabric with black, gray and beige tones to serve as our tree skirt.
Natural Decor for Christmas for Your Fireplace Mantel
In addition to our green glass vase filled with dried stems of garlic bulbils, we’ve featured two pieces of wall art. The first features a deer and cardinal (#1209561) and the second the phrase “Peace on Earth” (#1219648). In order to balance the other end of our mantel, we’ve topped it with an 8-inch, battery-lighted snowy tree (#1215727). Also available at 10 inches (#1215726).
Above our mantel we feature a jeweled bird clip glass ornament (#1212404) on a woven twig basket.
Lastly, a white faux fur rug lays in front of the fireplace with a basket of birch logs off to the side. Our wooden church silhouette (#1219041), is available in-store or by contacting customer at 989.652.9931 or customerservice@bronners.com.
Inspired to try your hand at DIY projects for other times of the year? Try our DIY Easter bunny wreath and recycle Christmas decorations for Easter.