'Tis the Season

Interior Advice with
Avril Heard-Woollcombe
- Karibu Interior Design

‘Tis the season...

Decorating your home for Christmas can be fun for the whole family. Avril shares her tips for creating the perfect festive theme for your home this holiday season.

Make decorating for Christmas fun for the whole family with these tips for creating the perfect festive theme to suit your home.

Homemade biscuits cut into festive shapes, decorated, and then threaded with ribbon and placed on the tree make for a wonderful family activity. Create your own Christmas crackers by customising plain crackers with bands of fabric around the centre, and then attaching embellishments, foliage, and baubles onto each.
Search online New Zealand companies that sell all the products required to make your own, even with the essential ‘bang’ and hats!

Start with sensory:

Let there be light:

One of my favourite ways to decorate the house during the festive season is to bring the sights and smells of the outdoors in, by filling large bowls with pinecones, rosehips, lavender, and a large vase of scented Christmas lilies.

Unlike the Northern hemisphere, we are heading to
the outdoors for our pleasure and entertainment. Create a festive alfresco area with fairy lights, Christmas lights, bright cushions, rugs, and furniture. Thread fairy lights into the trees and pots, and around the front door, and entwine greenery into the lights both indoors and outdoors to create a festive feel.

Create your own festive wreath:

Wrapping it up:

Create this delicate decoration by arranging sprigs of foliage such as ivy, eucalyptus, olive leaves, conifer, and cones around a wire wreath. Secure with fine green florist wire, working around the frame in a clockwise fashion. String mini baubles in the centre and hang with lengths of vibrant ribbon.

Make your own wrapping paper by using newsprint
or re-cycled paper decorated with rubber stamps, stickers or paint, then tie with fabric ribbon, colourful wool or twine.
“Christmas is all about family, friends, and do not
forget the pets,” says Avril. “You want to create
a wonderfully festive, warm, and inviting home.
Christmas is the mark of the year's end; it is a time to
unwind and celebrate surrounded by those you love and
give thanks for what we are lucky enough to have.”

Choosing a tree:

​Consider purchasing a real Christmas tree! There is something special about a family outing to choose your own tree. Alternatively, grow your own potted version which can be decorated each year. Nothing is more Kiwi than a driftwood Christmas tree, so why not make your own. Make it a fun time for the whole family to decorate their tree. The pine tree aroma
says Christmas is here.

 

Decorations:

Think visual. The best Christmas decorations are family heirlooms that emerge year after year. You may wish to limit the colour palette to two or
three colours; like metallics, red, white, and green.

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