A Beautiful, Natural Christmas

One of main themes for Christmas this year has been Natural/DIY, and over the last few months, I’ve featured key elements and snippets from recent shoots and events I’ve hosted. 

I knew that for many, the festive season would look very different in 2020 and taking a more natural, crafty approach that was both economically and environmentally friendly to recreate really resonated with me.

I wanted to lean towards decoration that could be handcrafted or collected from outdoors and loved the idea of giving older treasures a new lease on life…..I certainly had fun going through my storage cupboards and unearthing precious items that had been tucked away and forgotten about!

When I designed each project or setting, I envisioned them all being able to work together beautifully, so I wanted to collate them into one larger collection to showcase the overall effect. I’ve selected some of my favourite images to share with you here. 

With Love,
Sandra xx

Every year, I create an advent calendar for my family. We love counting down the days until Christmas and this years natural theme looked particularly beautiful (and inviting!).
Click here to read more about creating your own advent calendar and some lovely suggestions for little gifts to surprise and delight!

Brown paper packages, tied up with string, these are a few of my favourite things!….

Create a lovely centre pieces for the table by collecting small boxes and presents together. Group a few different sizes to create a little more depth.

I loved collecting and using natural elements like moss and pinecones - add a light layer of pva glue to the pinecone layers and then dust with a light grained glitter for a snow dusted finish.

Another way to lend a little extra elegance is brown paper is to adorn with a brushstrokes of metallic paint. I like the ‘imperfect’ and natural look. If you’re interested to try something similar, check out my previous post on creating your own hand painted wrapping paper here!

Creating this Bundt Cake Wonderland was so much fun….who could resist a table laden with so much deliciousness! ;-)

For more on festive styling using Bundt cakes, click here for the full post!

The beautiful wooden reindeer table ornaments were created by hand by my Husband. He used wood from trees in our garden that had to be felled.

Choose the festive design you like, sketch onto the wood and use a jigsaw to carefully cut around the design. Finish by hand with sandpaper. Here, he has added a small hole at the tope of the tree, so this can also be used as a Christmas decoration.

This candle arrangement has plenty of texture and whilst it was easy to create, it certainly is quite feature piece. You can recreate this by nestling candles in a bed of moss housed in small seedling pots (available from any garden centre.)

Nothing compares to the magic of candlelight for entertaining. Checkout the ‘Styling By Candlelight’ post for more!

Repurposing old glass jars and create simple, but elegant arrangements. This year, I used a candle refilling service to rejuvenate my collection of glass jars and containers into beautiful candles. Read more about refilling candles here!

Sugared fruit and foliage is a simple but stunning way to bring a little magic to the table - you can learn how to do this by checking out The Delights of Sugared Fruit & Foliage blog post

Have you ever received grocery deliveries wrapped up in this kind of wool packaging? During lockdown a lot of my chilled goods would arrive in tucked up in a layer of this woollen blanket…..after amassing a small mountain, I decided I would recycle it and create these lovely table decorations! I sketched out a basic pattern of the stocking and finished it with a simple blanket stitch. For the small table favour container, I upcycled an ordinary can (for tinned food) by painting in block colour and then layering in the woollen blanketing around the edge. You can finish with a little greenery or whatever decorative flourish takes your fancy!

I absolutely love these little glitter dusted pinecone decorations! So easy to make, check out the blog post for DIY directions!

Another very easy but beautiful way to use pinecones at the table - find the how to guide here!