Christmas is bursting with tradition, none more obvious than decorating the home for the season. From bringing a Christmas tree indoors to hanging fairy lights and even the recent trend for Christmas-themed bedding, decorating at Christmas is one of the season’s most beloved traditions. But why limit your festive decor to inside the house?
Christmas comes around at the darkest, gloomiest time of the year. Whether you’re making your way home from work or walking the dog on a dark, damp evening, there’s nothing quite like the cosy feel you get from noticing Christmas decorations as you pass by a house.
Outdoor Christmas decorations are having a moment as families up and down the country embrace lights, trees, wreaths and even standalone ornaments on the front lawn. Christmas Trees Direct is an online store for all your Christmas needs such as outdoor decorations. If you’d like to get in on that action but aren’t quite sure where to start, read on for some fantastic inspiration to help you spread festive cheer with unique DIY outdoor Christmas decorations.
What Do I Need to Make DIY Outdoor Christmas Decorations?
The materials you need largely depend on the type of decorations and ornaments you want to make. However, plenty of everyday items used year-round come in handy. This list is by no means exhaustive but offers an idea of the kind of things you might need.
Scissors: A decent pair of scissors is indispensable for cutting wire, greenery, string and garlands.
Cable ties: Cable ties are handy for securing items to ensure they don’t get stolen or blow away in the wind.
Glue gun: Glue guns are a quick and easy way to ensure homemade decorations don’t fall apart.
Chicken wire: Chicken wire is easy to mould into shape and works really well with twinkling lights.
Pool noodles: Whether you’re making candy canes, wreaths or garlands, pool noodles make a great base.
Spray paint: Spray paint is a quick and easy way to transform items into metallic or traditional colour schemes.
String lights: String lights are a quintessential part of Christmas decor and no outdoor Christmas decoration is complete without them.
Pine cones: Cheap (or even free) and easy to come by, pine cones can elevate outdoor Christmas decoration design.
Tree foliage: Fir, spruce, yew, holly. All of these can be used for making wreaths and garlands or adding texture to other decorations.
Most importantly, you need some inspiration! That’s where we come in – read on for some creative ideas for making your own outdoor Christmas decorations. Even if you’re a complete beginner with zero craft skills, we guarantee there will be something on this list that you can make to fill your friends, neighbours and passers-by with Christmas cheer.
Outdoor Christmas Decorations Ideas
Outdoor Christmas decorations don’t begin and end with a Christmas tree! These Christmas decorating ideas are ideal for front doors, porches and gardens and contain a mix of projects for beginners and more experienced crafters.
Christmas Front Door Decor Ideas
Decorating the front door is a traditional way to welcome family and friends to your home at Christmas. It is a great place to start displaying your DIY outdoor Christmas decorations.
DIY Christmas Wreath
A Christmas wreath is the most obvious way to decorate the front door for the festive season, and making one is easier than you may think.
Make Your Own Fresh Christmas Wreath
A fresh Christmas wreath is made from real greenery with ornaments and decorations added on top. Start with a wire or straw base and add sprigs of spruce or fir branches around it. Choose a theme and add small decorations to complement the wreath. For example, a woodland theme could include holly leaves and berries, pine cones, twigs and seed pods. Alternatively, stick on a few baubles with a ribbon bow for a traditional red and green theme.
Make Your Own Artificial Wreath
Artificial wreaths don’t have to involve fake greenery. Get the glue gun out and stick lots of baubles or pompoms together into a wreath shape for a delightfully bright and colourful wreath. Faux poinsettia flowers, tinsel, corks, rope, lollipop sticks and even old scarves can all be used to create a fun, festive front door decoration that lasts for years.
Swags
If you like the idea of adorning your front door with festive greenery but find wreaths a little too traditional, then a swag is for you. Like fresh wreaths, they are made from spruce, fir, or other evergreen branches and decorated for effect. However, they have a more contemporary look with wide centres and tapered ends.
Start with the base – you can buy one from a craft shop or bend wire coat hangers into the correct shape. Use florist wire to attach your seasonal greenery, layering the branches as you go. From there, you can attach pine cones, berries, ribbon bows and any other decorations that take your fancy.
Hanging Baskets
Hanging baskets filled with colourful plant displays aren’t just for summer and make gorgeous outdoor Christmas decorations next to the front door. Tie the look together by filling outdoor planters with the same plants and flowers.
With its deep green hues and trailing habit, ivy makes a great base for festive hanging baskets. Complement it by planting winter pansies, winter-flowering heathers and winter irises.
Alternatively, use a florist’s oasis to create a hanging basket that complements your wreath. Add fir, spruce, holly, cut poinsettia flowers, pine cones and berries for a traditional Christmas display.
Ensure you water hanging baskets regularly, especially if they’re kept under a front porch where the rain can’t get to them. Hanging baskets dry out quickly, so a good watering schedule helps them last the whole season.
Wintry Windows
If you prefer to stay in the warm while putting up Christmas decorations, you might like to decorate inside the windows. Doing this means your ornaments and lights don’t have to be waterproof or too tightly secured, but they can still be enjoyed from the outside.
Christmas Tree
Placing the Christmas tree itself in the window is a great way to spread festive cheer. Nothing quite beats the sight of a twinkling Christmas tree in a window, and the eyes can’t help but be drawn to it.
The trick to making your Christmas tree stand out as part of your outdoor Christmas decoration is lighting. Christmas lights draw the eye and are more easily noticed on cold, dark evenings than other Christmas tree ornaments.
Use the same tone of lights on your Christmas tree and in other parts of your outdoor Christmas decoration. For example, stick to only multi-coloured or only cool white lights on both. Doing this produces a cohesive look and ties together the indoor and outdoor Christmas lighting.
Garlands
Making your own festive garland is relatively simple and is one of the easiest DIY Christmas craft projects on this list – especially if you don’t need it to be waterproof. Use a pool noodle or length of rope for the central base and attach real or faux greenery to it, ensuring the branches all face in the same direction. Next, use floral wire, green string or a glue gun to attach decorations.
Opt for the same theme as your wreath for a cohesive look, or choose something completely different. Baubles, pine cones, ribbons and even dried fruit are all great ideas for decorating a homemade garland.
Lights
Hanging a light curtain from the top of the window is a quick and easy way to add a festive touch to the outside of the home. Ensure it hangs behind the curtains or blinds if you plan to close them so the whole street can enjoy it.
Opt for bright multi-coloured lights for a fun theme, or choose lights with a warm white tone for a cosy glow. Cold white lights are ideal for producing a chilly, wintry feel and are perfect if the rest of the garden has a winter theme.
Hanging Christmas Decorations
Hanging outdoor Christmas decorations is the traditional way to display them. Baubles and lights are the most obvious candidates for hanging decorations but you can get creative and display other outdoor Christmas decorations in this way.
Christmas Lights
By far the most popular of all outdoor Christmas decorations, lights can transform a plain garden into a winter wonderland. Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without all the lights twinkling and brightening up the dark evenings.
Christmas lights are ideal for illuminating trees, wreaths, garlands, lanterns and other Christmas decorations. But you can also get creative and hang them from unexpected places to make the garden sparkle.
Rather than draping Christmas lights over the branches of a tree, choose one branch and loop the lights over it so both ends reach the ground. Repeat with more string lights, fanning them out to create a hanging Christmas tree effect with the lights.
Use net lights to cover hedges, fences and windows – clear Christmas lights are perfect for this. The effect is striking, yet it requires minimal effort.
Bear in mind that less is sometimes more, and don’t go too overboard with Christmas lights. The overall effect (and your electricity bill!) will thank you for it.
Bird Food Ornaments
The winter season can be hard for birds. Not only do they need to find somewhere cosy to shelter from the weather, the cold, hard ground makes it difficult for garden birds to find food. Incorporating bird food ornaments into your DIY outdoor Christmas decorations creates visual interest while helping birds survive the chilly months of the year. Also, there are few more sustainable outdoor Christmas decorations than a DIY bird feeder!
Make your favourite birdseed cake recipe (you can find plenty of ideas on Google) and mix it together in a bowl. Place Christmas-themed cookie cutters on a sheet of greaseproof paper and fill them with the birdseed mixture. Pack the seeds down tightly, ensuring there are no holes or gaps. Use a skewer to create a hole at the top of each decoration and leave them to set for around 8 hours. Gently remove the cookie cutters and thread a festive ribbon through the hole in the top. Voila!
Festive Baubles
Give old sports balls a festive makeover by upcycling them into Christmas baubles. These cute Christmas ornaments are easy to make and look great hanging from trees or the front porch. Use a mixture of tennis balls, footballs and rugby balls for a variety of shapes and sizes.
Spray paint the balls in colours to match your decorating theme (you can add glitter for extra sparkle if you like) and leave them to dry. Gather some bottle caps and make a small hole in the top of each one, then thread some string or invisible thread through. When the paint is dry, glue the bottle caps to the balls and use the string to hang them.
Standing Decorations
Hanging outdoor Christmas decorations can get a bit samey, and you might not want to put too many hook holes in your house. Standing decorations in flower beds and lawns helps give the display depth and creates further interest all the way up the garden path.
Pallet Christmas Tree
Upcycling a pallet into an outdoor Christmas tree can be done in two ways. Your preferred method will depend on the space you want to fill as well as your skills, or lack thereof, with a jigsaw cutter.
Method 1
This method is ideal for solid pallets that don’t have gaps between the slats. Sand and paint the pallet, then place a Christmas tree-shaped template in the centre. Choose a second colour and paint around the stencil so the tree shape is a different colour from the rest of the pallet.
When the paint dries, you can add decorations for a 3D effect, paint them on or simply leave the tree to speak for itself.
Method 2
Any type of pallet is fine for this project. Use string to make two straight lines in a triangle shape from the top centre to the bottom corners of the pallet. Cut out the triangle to create the Christmas tree shape. Cut away the backboards so you’re left with the tree shape nailed to the pallet’s middle support beam. You might need to add a few more nails if the boards feel loose. Use the discarded pieces of wood to create a sturdy base for the tree to prevent it from tipping over.
Leave the tree as it is for a rustic look, paint it a vibrant colour, or add lights and Christmas decorations to make the most of your outdoor space.
Tomato Cage Christmas Trees
This simple outdoor Christmas decoration is incredibly effective and re-purposes gardening equipment not needed at this time of year. Grab a cone-shaped tomato cage from the shed (you can pick one up for a few pounds if you don’t already have one) and place it upside down on a table. Use string, wire or a rubber band to gather the ends together and make a point at what is now the top of the frame.
Start at the top and wind solar-powered outdoor Christmas lights around the cage in spirals heading downwards. You can make the lights as dense or as sparse as you wish. Make two to flank the front door or place one or more around the lawn or driveway.
Lanterns
Outdoor lanterns make amazing festive decorations and you don’t need much skill or artistic talent to make them look fantastic.
We’d never recommend leaving lit votive candles unattended in the garden, so instead, fill large wooden or metal lanterns with battery-powered Christmas lights. Choose multi-coloured bulbs for an eye-catching effect or opt for the glow of white lights that suit any outdoor Christmas decorating style. Alternatively, fill the lanterns with shiny Christmas ornaments. Pick a colour scheme or go all out with a rainbow of bright hues.
Take some of your Christmas greenery and stick it to the top of the lantern, underneath the handle. Add a couple of pine cones and a neat bow for the finishing touch.
Planters
Empty outdoor planters waiting to be filled with flowers in spring are ideal for outdoor Christmas decorating. The obvious use is to fill them with a Christmas tree or festive foliage and flowers (see hanging baskets above.) But there are other ways you can incorporate them into your outdoor Christmas decorations.
Place some old newspaper in the bottom of the planter or place a protective layer over any soil that’s still inside the planter. Add oversized ornaments and baubles on top for instant outdoor decoration. This kind of Christmas decor looks great on the front porch or flanking the front door.
Tall planters can also be used to display large candy cane Christmas decorations. Buy plastic ones from a shop (some even light up), or make your own with pool noodles. Wrap a red pool noodle with white duct tape in a spiral pattern. Thread wire up through the hole in the middle and use it to bend the pool noodle into a candy cane shape. Complement your candy canes with giant lollipops made from tall sticks and paper plates. Simply paint your design on the plate, stick it to the stick and wrap the plate in cellophane (this helps protect it from the weather as well as being a cool design feature).
Painted Wooden Signs
Whether you want to ensure Santa stops at your house, welcome visitors or simply display a festive picture, painting a wooden sign is a great way to do it. Get your piece of wood from a craft shop, or use a jigsaw to cut your desired shape. Sand the wood to smooth the edges and let the paint bond with the wood.
Once you’ve finished painting your DIY Christmas sign, let it dry, then use a protective finish to prevent weather damage. Attach the sign to a stake and place it on the lawn or in a flower bed.
There is more to outdoor decoration than a Christmas tree. DIY outdoor Christmas decorations are fun to make and – unless you’re using fresh greenery – last for years. Coming up with your own Christmas decoration ideas and making them yourself means your home and garden will be unique through the festive season.
Hopefully, this list of Christmas decorating ideas for outside the home will have given you some inspiration and know-how to help you create your own DIY outdoor Christmas decorations.
Happy decorating!