christmas decorating ideas Archives - Ashley Hackshaw / Lil Blue Boo

I’ve had boxes of these old Christmas cards for a while now. They were my parents from years ago and I saved them to make things with:

You can use old cards and yearly Christmas card to make these wood-based ornaments or use them as gift tags:

You can use wood slices or pre-made wood discs:

Use the slice of wood as a template and trace the shape onto the cards and then carefully cut them out:

For the wood slices I cut the cards out slightly smaller than the bark so that the wood grain was visible:

I used Liquitex Matte Medium as my glue and glaze. I used a paintbrush to paint a layer on the wood and then on the back of the paper circle and then on top of the card. Since the medium is “matte” you won’t be able to see it once it dries.

Once the medium was dry I lightly sanded the edges of the paper to age it:

All the ornaments with their edges sanded:

I mixed a little brown paint with water to make a very diluted wash and painted over the ornaments. The wash will soak into the sanded edges and into the exposed wood to “age” them”:

I used a power drill to carefully add the holes:

A natural jute twine was added for hanging:

Turn one of your Christmas cards into an ornament each year!

These can be used as gift tags and the receiver can hang them on their tree:

And on the tree!

Make sure to check out all the other Christmas decorations made this year for Michaels! Click here to see all the posts related to my DIY vintage hiking and camping tree.

There’s always a lot going on during the holidays and it can easily get out of hand. This month the Michaels Makers were asked to come up with creative and fun holiday hacks and tips to help relieve some of the potential stress and make holiday entertaining and prepping fun! We were given 5 common holiday hiccups to choose from and I went with ways to repurpose old holiday decor like these ornaments I no longer use:

I used the tangle of old ornaments to make this chalkboard inspired wall decor:

I used a pre-made chalkboard canvas from Michaels but if you can’t find the size you want you can also just paint a canvas or piece of wood using black chalkboard paint. I sketched my design out on paper first and then placed a piece of chalk transfer paper underneath to trace:

I scanned and uploaded the template I made. Feel free to use it to make your own!

The transferred design:

I used plain white acrylic paint to make a permanent design:

The finished chalkboard-inspired tree:

Next I used a needle and some red twine to sew each ornament to the canvas. (Note: Lint can be an issue on this canvas, especially if you are wearing a linty sweater like I was while working, but just use some sticky tape to clean it off when you are done!)

This is what it looks like from the back of the canvas:

All the ornaments sewn on:

A pretty addition to our stone fireplace:

Or make for a gift!

I came up with a few other ways to update old decor as well and I’ll be sharing those tomorrow but here’s a sneak peek:

Michaels has tons of holiday project ideas and instructions on their Michaels.com, including gift wrapping, home décor, last minute gift ideas, hostess gifts and more.

Make sure to check out the other four holiday hack topics and the unique ideas all of the makers came up with on Michaels’ blog, The Glue String and straight to them here:

An InLinkz Link-up

Recycled Christmas Card Ornaments

DIY Chalkboard Christmas Tree