If you love our Summer Christmas ideas as much as we do,  here’s how to recreate the look. We have asked Anneke from AnnaH to share a few of the craft projects we made for our beach side table. Anneke says that attention to detail and repetition is very important when you want to create a specific Christmas look. “Put effort into the smaller features and make sure that you replicate the use of materials, textures and colours to support your ideas”.

For our Summer Christmas DIY we limited materials to raw textures, muted tones of grey and sand with touches of greenery. We repeated the use of chalk paint, paper and oyster shells to add to our theme.

Chalk Paint

When travelling this festive season, you’ll probably want to pack light. Be clever and get creative with only a few items in your holiday bag you can create an array of decor items.

What to pack:

• Chalk paint and a brush
• Card board
• Fairy Lights
• Old books
• Old cutlery / crockery / cups

Gifts

No need to buy gift wrapping paper, using the pages of a vintage book as wrapping paper you can creatively wrap your gifts. Painting a strip of chalk paint on top will even allow for a short message…. needless to say, it’s one less Christmas card to worry about.

Give your old crockery, cups or glasses a fresh ‘revamp’. With a coat of chalk paint, you can reuse old cups, write a festive or personal message on it and fill the cup with wrapped edible gifts or a small gift. To complete the look download festive  beach Christmas printables here. 

Christmas Tree
We’ve sourced a cardboard Christmas tree cut-out from ascribe and gave standard fairy lights a unique twist with paper boxes.

Paper lantern boxes

• Side A. Cut out a square piece of paper and fold it in half over the length. Open and fold it in half over the width. (you should see 4 squares).
•  Turn the square paper around (side B) and fold a triangle over the length. Open and fold a triangle over the width.
•  With side B facing the top, use the creases to fold the paper into a triangle facing upwards.
•  Use the bottom right corner of the triangle and fold it upwards in half ( a smaller triangle ).
•  Do this with all the corners until the triangle becomes diamond shaped.
•  Fold the right corner of the diamond inwards towards the middle, to form another smaller triangle. Do this with all the corners.
•  Take the bottom corners of the diamond and fold it upwards. Tuck the top corner into the smaller triangles that you’ve folded in the previous step.
•  At the bottom of the diamond shape there should be a small opening. Gently blow into the opening and your lantern should take shape of a small square box.

Find step-by-step pictures here. 

Artichoke Candles

Chances are that your holiday destination won’t have a lot of decorative containers.

Candles create a wonderful effect on any dinner table, but if you can’t find a suitable container visit your nearest grocer and explore the fresh produce section for interesting shapes.

We’ve used an artichoke for its texture and beautiful colour. Using a kitchen knife, carve out a hole 2 cm deep from the top and replace with a tea light candle. It’s as simple as that. For a more minimalist / modern appeal, you can spray-paint the artichoke white.

Fabric stencils

Stencilling is probably one of the most fun and affordable ways to create anything decorative for Christmas.

Instead of buying expensive wrapping paper and stationery, why not invest in a pretty stencil set (that you’ll be able to use for years and years to come)?

As part of our Summer Christmas table, we’ve used old scraps of linen, cut it into thin strips and literally ‘put our stamp on it’…

It’s ideal for serviette decorations, name tags and you can even use it for gift wrapping.

Concrete Candle Holders

My husband made these chic concrete candle holders for us. I found that silicone cupcake molds work the best. But you can use a plastic or paper cup as well. Mix the concrete according the the instructions on the packet. Fill the oiled cupcake mold 3/4 full with the concrete mixture. Tap to get rid of air bubbles. Use tea light press the tea light into the concrete. As the concrete sets, twits the candle so that it does not stick. Remove the candles when the concrete is set, but not completely dry. Leave to dry for 2 more days.

 Images: Christine Meintjes & Lindy Truter