Just a quick decoration ideas blog this evening – a lovely personal way to brighten up plain glass Christmas baubles.

These are a handful I made this evening, using some feathers I gathered up from my hens earlier in the year when they were moulting, as well as some left over metallic skeleton leaves from last year’s Christmas crackers.  Last year, I made a few with shredded up knitting wool – the little tutorial I wrote then goes through the basic process, so I won’t repeat myself.

The rather scary surgical-looking forceps in the image above aren’t compulsory, but are a very useful tool for feeding feathers and leaves through the small opening to the bauble, and arranging them inside if necessary.  I picked these up in a pack of mixed instruments for a couple of quid from a craft supplier on eBay, they’ve come in very handy for one thing and another!  But if you haven’t got anything like that, a pair of tweezers will work almost as well.  Do get real glass baubles – they’re much more attractive that the plastic ones and usually much easier to break into, too!

You could use anything you like, of course – pretty sand from a favourite holiday beach, little shells, glitter, or artificial snow with some small Christmas decorations might make an interesting seasonal twist?  I’m really looking forward to getting the tree up on Thursday to see how they work with all my other decorations!

I’m trying to write a post a day during Advent, so, please come along with me while I try to Blog Advent – the Country Skills Way – and forgive me if I don’t quite manage it!

Read more from the Country Skills blog >>