Zero Waste: Christmas: Crafty ideas for a sustainable Christmas

By Emma Friedlander-Collins and Christine Leech

Celebrate Christmas the zero-waste way with these crafty solutions for everything from Christmas tree decorations to advent calendars. The zero-waste movement is huge and this collection of crafty ideas will help you to create your own zero waste solutions for a sustainable Christmas.

It’s time to reclaim Christmas - this collection is all about using the things around you to bring festive cheer to your home. It’s about crafting and creating together and using what you’ve got to make unique, unusual items that you can enjoy year after year. By crafting your zero-waste Christmas you are also creating memories – something that cannot be bought online.

Upcycling and reuse gurus Emma Friedlander-Collins and Christine Leech show you how to turn Christmas into a zero-waste experience with step-by-step instructions and some clever crafting. Whether you’re a committed crafter or new to making, there is something for everyone no matter what your skill level is. 

Choose from projects and tutorials for a sustainable Christmas including sewing, crochet, upcycling and reuse ideas. You don’t need to have lots of craft skills to create these projects, there are step-by-step instructions for each one. There are also instructions for the basic craft techniques such as crochet and embroidery so you can get stuck in straightaway. 

There are four different Christmas themed chapters: Hot; Frosty; Skandi and Retro so you pick your favourite style or mix and match for festive mash-up! Projects include Coffee Cup Baubles; a minimalist wreath made using an old cake tin; a milk carton advent calendar and some magical fairy lights made using takeaway containers. 

Choose your favourite projects from this collection of 24 projects including no-waste decorations for the tree and zero-waste gift wrap. Packed full of original ideas, Zero Waste: Christmas will help you to celebrate the zero-waste way and improve your efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle while at the same time having fun.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David & Charles
• Release date: Jul 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781446380802

Emma Friedlander-Collins

Emma Friedlander-Collins is passionate about sustainability and continually works to discover ways to use craft and making to create communities and inspire others.

Book preview

Skandi

This clean but cosy look lends itself perfectly to a less commercial Christmas, so add some ‘hygge’ without the hype to your zero waste festivities.

Minimal Wreath

This is a great way to make use of things that you already have at home, and when you’re done you can just take it apart and pop it back in the cupboard.

You will need

Cardboard box

Spring form cake tin

Old white towel

Pine cones and sprigs of fir or pine

Scissors/craft knife

Marker pen and ruler

Glue

String

Marking out the house. Open out the cardboard box and on the wrong side draw out the fronts, sides and roof of the house with the marker pen. You can either use the template (see Templates) or try drawing your own. Cut out and glue together (1).

Make the snow. Use scissors to cut a patch of towel to make some ‘snow’ for the house to stand on. The towel will fray and there will be lots of little bits of cotton. Keep these and use them as decorative snow (2).

Hang the wreath. Cut a length of string to approximately 30cm (12in) long, feed it through the opening mechanism on the edge of the cake tin and tie the ends together. Hang it up in the desired location (3).

Assembling the scene. Place the ‘snow’ patch in the bottom of the tin, put the cardboard house on it and arrange the pine cones and sprigs of greenery around it. Sprinkle with the loose bits of cotton to finish (4).

Dala Treat Horse

These little horses make perfect place cards and are a great alternative to crackers, just write each guest’s name on their saddles and fill their hollow bodies with treats.

If you give everyone a paper placemat you can have lots of fun round the dinner table using the horses’ pencil legs for doodling, drawing and writing your own Christmas jokes.

You will need

Toilet roll

Plain paper

Bradawl

Four pencils

Secateurs or junior hacksaw

White card from a packaging box

Tissue paper

Scissors

Pens

Glue stick

Cover the body. Use the toilet roll as a template and cut a piece of white paper the same length and circumference as it. Draw a saddle on the paper, add a name if you’d like to use the horse as a place setting, and glue in place around the toilet roll. Use a bradawl to make four holes underneath for the pencil legs to fit into