Christmas Baubles

Hi everyone,

I hope you’re all managing OK during the Melbourne (and Australian) heat and festive season. I’ve been lucky to have my Christmas sorted early which means I can share a little moment from the week leading up to it. 

I decided to explore caring ways to go about Christmas gifting. Christmas for a lot of people is super stressful - trying to find the right gift for 5 people? Its a lot. So I wanted to approach the stress from a place of care. This year, every gift I purchased was either a consumable (ie: chocolate), second hand, or hand made. I wanted to make Christmas baubles because it’s a beautiful way to mark the moment, create memories and walk the streets of your community. 

I started with paper that I had saved and did 3 layers of paper mache on balloons I got from a neighbour. I made the glue out of flour and water. On the final layer, I painted the white paper with water colour pencils (and not actual paints as sometimes it doesn’t absorb into the paper).

I foraged some flowers and leaves, applied them to the baubles with PVA. I had some plastic stars lying around and glue gunned them on. A bit of wire at the top, covered by old fabric scraps, more hot glue and I had 3 baubles for family members.

I loved exploring the different shapes of the baubles that came when the balloons deflated whilst still slightly damp. It created a very textural, sculptural like bauble (this one here looks like a heart and I was trying to tell my family member I loved them) I purposely found pink flower petals for this one and if you can find native paper daisies, they work a treat for holding colour. The response received was more than I expected. My family loved them and the next day, were still gushing about them. 

I love how the flower petals remind me of feathers. How the leaves remind me of Christmas trees. I’m not an expert on making Christmas baubles (last year I used a pine cone and put glitter on it - so I’ve definitely become more inventive in this practice) but I do hope this inspires something within so you can make your Christmas a bit more personal.

And hey, if making things isn’t your forte or time is limited, I have art cards available that are all about expressing love through the visual. 

Happy holidays everyone,

Bethan Ester x