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Making your own Christmas decorations - with a tropical theme

This year we are having relatives from both sides of the family and the world for Christmas Lunch. My Mother in Law suggested that I do something as far from a traditional Christmas I I could for our English relatives. Since they had left a cold and snowing England and were going on a pre-Christmas Cruise on one of those humongous floating city type liners, I decided to do a Tropical Christmas. but I still wanted to keep it Christmas-y and not just do a Hawaiian themed lunch type thing. So, I decided on a snowflake and hibiscus theme in pink, green and silver. The colours chosen has more to with the fact that I only have one table cloth big enough for our table that seats 12 and its a mint green type colour!


Here's what I did!


I cut out a million six sided snowflakes from standard A4 photocopy paper - these will go on the windows and hang from the ceiling.



I decorated the tree in pink hibiscus, green and silver baubles, green and silver snowflakes and a single 10m strand of silver tinsel - there are lights as well somewhere!


These candles were plain when I got them and will go on the table on Christmas day. Again, white wire, white beads to match the wine glasses with a few snowflake stickers and left over leaves from the hibiscus sitting on a doily. I put cardboard under the doiley as I wanted to make sure the wax didnt get onto my table cloth...



 I made a tropical type wreath for the front door - with pink hibiscus and a single green snowflake (are you seeing a bit of a pattern forming here?)



We have a hangy thing above our dining room table that we use to hang decorations for special events on - this is the Christmas version for 2011!


I used some white wire, threaded it with snowflake charms (from e-bay) and white beads with a single pink or green bead to decorate and individualise the wine glasses.




The Christmas crackers have the same snowflake that you have seen on the tree and wreath - I paid $7 for a set of these decorations at Aldi and have used the whole lot on this project.



These leis are made from serviettes cut into strips, folded like a fan and cut into petal shapes. then I scrunched each one into a flower  and taped it before threading each one with a needle on the the lei. Each lei has 150 flowers. It took a while, cost $2 and looks great!




And I made some napkin holders out of cardboard rolls, white raffia and white hibiscus flowers - super easy!


Score card:
Green-ness:  3/5 Reasonalbly green in that I am reusing most of the decorations or making them from stuff I already have
Frugal-ness: 4/5 I have only spent money on the flowers and the snowflakes - about $30 all up. Pink Hibiscus wernt cheap - even on e-bay!
Time cost: Some things were quick, some took a bit of time. But like anything worth doing, its worth spending the time if you need to. Just have a plan to make sure its not all a last minute rush to have all the things you want on the day. Some of this stuff was made about 6 weeks before Christmas! 
Skill level: Most of its pretty basic! Im sure you can do it!
Fun-ness: If you love putting on a show - then this is the most fun you can have - its Christmas! Go all out. If you dont do it at Christmas, when will you do it???

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