Table setting
For understated elegance in your Christmas table setting, draw on colours from our natural environment. We’ve made placemats from three recycled-paper envelopes, which we’ve sewn together using a zigzag stitch, with a straight stitch around the outside edges. Our napkin is in sea-blue cotton fabric. For the cutlery holder, we sewed half an envelope to a whole one. For the place name, we simply used a paper tag, labelled it using a stamp set, then tied it to a Christmas-tree ornament.
Wall feature
Frame your favourite Christmas cards or prints and hang them on the wall to create a festive mood.
Say it with flowers
In keeping with the Australian theme and colour scheme, make an Aussie bouquet for your table centrepiece. Display a bunch of plants such as banksia, native grasses and seed pods.
Welcoming wreath
Forget the tinsel wreath with its plastic Santa and make one inspired by nature. You can buy a suitable ring from a craft shop, and on it wind native grasses and long flexible twigs, attach gum leaves and gumnuts, and, using string, tie a wooden button and paper tag with a greeting (like the one pictured). Or you can make your own ring. Either cut a skinny doughnut-like ring from heavy-duty cardboard, or make one using thin, flexible branches from appropriate trees such as willow (about $25 a bunch from florists). Strip them of any leaves, and for flexibility, soak in water before shaping. Secure with florist’s wire.
