I'm super excited for day one of my Twelve Days of Christmas by Rhi! Christmas is my favourite holiday, and I secretly wish it would snow in Auckland so we could enjoy all of the wintery things that come with the ideology of this season, but the long, summer nights make up for it.
To start the series off, I have created two homemade decorations that are perfect for every foodie; fresh dried orange slices and cinnamon bark make for the perfect decorations. Combined with the scent of fresh pine, these decorations create the most beautiful smell that floats throughout your home over the holidays. Both of these decorations are super effortless, but they look stunning paired with a couple of gingerbread men dotted over a tree.
To start the series off, I have created two homemade decorations that are perfect for every foodie; fresh dried orange slices and cinnamon bark make for the perfect decorations. Combined with the scent of fresh pine, these decorations create the most beautiful smell that floats throughout your home over the holidays. Both of these decorations are super effortless, but they look stunning paired with a couple of gingerbread men dotted over a tree.
The first decorations takes only an orange, a sprig of rosemary and some cute twine, resulting in the prettiest little ornament. All you need to do to make this decoration is:
- Preheat an oven on fan bake to 80c. Slice the orange into thin slices, only a couple of mm thick if possible. Line a tray with baking paper, then lay down the orange slices. Dry in the oven for around an hour, turning every 15 minutes (you may need to dry them out longer, judge this by touching the orange slices to see if any moisture remains).
- Once dried, leave to cool.
- Cut the rosemary into 3cm pieces. Using a needle, take one of the orange slices create a hole at the top, just beneath the rind. Take a 15-20cm piece of twine, and fold it in half. Feed the loop through the hole, then take the ends and feed them through the loop.
- Before you tighten the string, place a piece of rosemary in between the orange edge and the string, the pull the loop tight. Knot the ends, and hang on the tree!
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The second decoration is even easier than the first, and takes 4 little steps. All you will need are some cinnamon sticks, red ribbon, some christmassy twine and a hot glue gun. All you need to do is:
- Take 3 cinnamon sticks, and hot glue them together into a pyramid/triangle.
- Cut a 20cm piece of string. Tie a loop to hang the decoration from, but leave enough string at one end to wrap around the cinnamon.
- Glue the bare end of the twine to one underside of the cinnamon, then wrap the remaining twine around the cinnamon until you reach the loop. Take a small amount of glue to secure the twine.
- Take a small piece of ribbon and tie into a little bow. Add a dot of glue to the back of the cow, and stick to the base of the loop. Leave to set then hang on the tree!
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