It’s my very first time as a host for Christmas, and to say I am excited is a bit of an understatement. What better way to curb my enthusiasm then to throw all my extra energy into creating a lovely, handmade Christmas decorations.
I’ve opted for natural materials where possible, and have spent so much time over the past few months collecting acorns, pine cones, twigs and other seasonal goodies. A lot of what I have used have been things foraged from the woodland floors surrounding our home. All apart from the Christmas tree itself, which for obvious reasons needed to be authentic, and so did set us back a few pennies.
My first step towards my perfect handmade Christmas was making dried orange slices.
I used clementines for mine, as our house is always inundated with these, one of the benefits of having a mother who works for a fruit packaging plant. You can can substitute any citrus fruit to suit your needs, lemons and limes work just as well.
First I sliced the oranges into fairly thin slices, mine were roughly 1cm, but you can do this by eye, they need to be thin enough to dry, but not so thin that they fall apart.
Once you have sliced as many oranges as you need it is time to start the drying process. If you are lucky enough to own a food dehydrator this is where this comes in handy. If not, a low oven (about 120 degrees Celsius) will work just as well. Place the orange slices on a wire rack (this is really important, as they will stick if placed directly onto an oven dish), in a warm oven for two or three hours turning at least once, turning the slices more often will prevent sticking.
Alternatively, the slices can be placed onto kitchen roll, and placed onto a radiator or in a warm place such as an airing cupboard for several days.
The drying process will cause the fruit to lose some of their colour, they will take on a more rustic, terracotta shade than the original bright orange.
Once the fruit is dry you are ready to prepare the slices for hanging. Using a kitchen skewer, or other sharp object (I used a cork screw) make a small hole in the top of each slice. Then simply pass a ribbon, or string through the hole and tie to create a loop.
The finished decorations are truly stunning when backed by fairy lights. Akin to tiny, festive, stained glass windows.
craftyoldjade's Blog 