Our run up to Christmas begins each year in November with the introduction of the Helen Round Christmas Collection.
We love to get into the Christmas spirit by decorating our shop in glorious Mount Edgcumbe Country Park.
This year, we’ve been joined by stylist Nicola Rickard who has created her own take on a Christmas theme for the Helen Round Shop and Studio. Nicola offers some ingenious approaches to make your own Christmas decorations by using fabric off cuts.
In her second year at Plymouth College of Art, studying BA Interior Design, Decoration and Styling, Nicola has used her keen interest in making & crafting, to bring a festive feel to our Shop. She's reflected our reuse and recycle philosophy and has created a strong sustainable statement by creating decorations from our fabric off-cuts.
Here she takes us through why re-purposing can be so important to home decorating at Christmas and her approach to decorating our lovely shop.
"Embracing Helen’s philosophy of sustainability & low-impact production, I wanted to festively style the shop with a small collection of hand-crafted rag wreaths, trees & baubles.
I've created these from offcuts of linen fabric featuring Helen’s designs and colour palettes. I wanted to design a Christmas style that complemented the shop’s look, not one that overpowered it.
Ever since I was small I can remember my Mum making a lot of our Christmas decorations. She always ensured that our colour schemes matched and making things at home saved money too. She started me on the road to recognising the importance of re-using and re-purposing.
I think making your own decorations is a great way to start feeling festive. Hot Chocolate and a Christmas film as an accompaniment is essential to get started. Then you can have some fun, safe in the knowledge that your decorations will be one-offs. These ideas can be made with children with some supervision too.
A lot of decorations are thrown out or given away, not because they’re broken but they don’t fit the home aesthetic any longer, so I thought it might be good to give you a quick run through of how I made some of the decorations for the shop."
Wreath From Linen Off Cuts
You'll need:
- Piece of polystyrene cut to into a 25cm ring (from left over packaging)
- Square off cuts of fabric approx 5cm x 5cm
- PVA glue and brush
- Crochet Hook or Blunt Pencil
Method:
Place fabric face down and put a dot of glue on the back. Using the pencil or crochet hook push into the polystyrene, the glue will help it to bond.
Continue to push the fabric into the ring, mixing colours or patterns as you choose until the ring is completely covered. Place your wreath where it can be appreciated!
If you'd rather tie fabric than stick it, here's an alternative...
You'll need:
- Dual ringed wreath - 12" wide
- Fabric off cuts cut into lengths of 3" by 8"
Method:
Tie a piece to each ring and then tie the third piece across both of the rings.
Repeat, around the whole ring, mixing up colours to your pattern and pushing each piece as close together as possible
I'm sure that you'll agree that the completed ring looks simply stunning.
Fabric Covered Bauble Or Ornament
You'll need:
- Old Christmas Bauble or Ornament
- Strips of left over cut fabric, roughly 1.5cm wide
- PVA glue & brush
Method:
Apply glue to the bauble before applying the fabric and then start to stick down strips onto the bauble.
Once all sections of the bauble are covered, cover the fabric with the glue to seal down all loose ends and to make sure the fabric stays in place.
You can wrap baubles or any ornament in fabric using this method.
Nicola goes on to say "The excitement of a Christmas with friends and family doesn’t have to be costly with fresh decorations. Re-purposing old decorations to fit a new scheme is not only more environmentally friendly but offers a story behind the look."
You can follow Nicola’s work on Instagram - click here or find her @interiors_and_stylingbynr
A huge thank you to Nicola for sharing her ideas with us and making our lovely shop look so festive over the holiday season.
If you'd like to try to make some of these ideas and need fabric scrap to work from, we sell our fabric scraps on our website for just this purpose. Click the picture below to choose from our fabric scrap selection.
You may also be interested in reading an earlier journal entry which has more information for decorations and cards for Christmas using left over scrap material. Click here.
Let us know if you decide to make any Christmas decorations of your own, we'd love to see them or hear your ideas so do please post on our social media pages; find us on Facebook or Instagram.
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