My DIY Home Decor for Christmas: Homemade Christmas Ideas and Inspiration


homemade christmas fireplace garland

For my last post of 2022, I want to share some of the homemade Christmas decor I have created for the season. After assembling a floral Christmas door arch last year, this year I went back to a fireplace mantel (a good choice, seeing as we had a huge dollop of snow land in Essex for the first half of December!)

The snow has covered the house this Christmas!

I also revisited making a large wreath from scratch, as I do love how a Christmas wreath looks on our blue door. I picked up a few bunches of juniper berries from Columbia Road Flower Market to make the bulk of the wreath, weaving the shapely foliage into moss.

homemade christmas wreath

I added pink berries to match the pink velvet ribbon, plus I attached some dried orange slices. For a full video on how I created this wreath click here to view the reel on my Instagram feed.

homemade christmas wreath
homemade christmas wreath

My fireplace mantel this year has been made from a lot of items I already owned (plus a bunch of foliage from Columbia Road). To start, I swapped out the circular mirror that usually sits above the mantel for a giant faux wreath to add a lot of drama! On the wreath, I added the same velvet bow that I used on the door, plus some leftover bleached Ruscus and sprayed fern that I used on last year’s Christmas arch.

homemade christmas fireplace garland

The garland that sits on the mantel has been created using real foliage and roses, some faux eucalyptus stems from my autumn door, as well as some foraged Bracken from Epping Forest.

homemade christmas fireplace garland

To balance out the huge wreath, I strung some dried orange slices together to make a garland and added lots more velvet bows to the fireplace surround so that the design didn’t look too top-heavy.

homemade christmas fireplace garland

Buy pink twisty candles from Accessorize. The deep red candles are from Heal’s.

I like to use a lot of natural foliage at Christmas, so for a Christmas table, I add pistache, fern and eucalyptus down the centre (as per the tablescape below that I created for Yankee Candle). A sprig of scented eucalyptus is also perfect when placed on top of a napkin for an easy table-setting idea.

christmas table setting

These dinner plates are from Heal’s.

What I love about a handmade Christmas is that it is often sustainable. As well as using florals, I created my own tree decorations with leftover wallpaper scraps and made reusable fabric crackers using linen. Click here to read how to make the paper baubles and here for the fabric crackers.

DIY paper christmas decorations

These paper decorations are made from wallpaper scraps.

DIY Fabric crackers

These fabric crackers still bang and you can use them year after year.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank every one of you who has taken the time to read my blog this year. I’ll be back in January with a living room makeover!

Love, Melanie xx