Baroque Christmas display
A baroque display made from materials that all have been used before: wrapping paper, boxes, bottles, plastic bags and images from a withdrawn book about medieval biblical paintings. Of course you’re not able to use exactly the same materials but you can easily replace the materials with your own.
Have a look in your box of materials (if you have one) or start collecting materials. Ask your friends, neighbors, colleagues for left over or discarded wrapping paper, plastic or paper bags with nice patterns (especially fashion carry bags can be really nice), ribbons etc. and build up a collection. Also look on your the library shelf for a book about paintings and copy some suitable images or use the pages of a withdrawn book as I did.
Use your imagination: you can replace all the materials according to your taste: a green background – silver plastic bags as lining for the tree – brown tree trunk – images from internet – or left-over Christmas paper from last year ………
What you need or better – What I used:
- Red wrapping paper
- Withdrawn book with medieval biblical paintings
- Plastic bag with a black and gold pattern
- Silver stars (left-over from the display: Time travel: from Moa to Mars)
- Gold wrapping paper
- Black wrapping paper
- Christmas lights
- Small boxes in different sizes
- Empty wine bottles (isn’t that a fantastic excuse to have a tipple)
- Gold laminated fabric as foreground cover
What to do:
- Cover the board in red wrapping paper
- Cut images from the ‘painting’ book – look for the angle the images are facing. You need left and right facing paintings but also images that suit the top and bottom. Cover the edges of the board with images. Pin them first and when you have filled in the center and it all fits then staple them
- Cut the gold and black striped plastic bag and fold it open. Use 5 cm wide strips to form the triangle of the tree head. Tie two strips together and use the knot in the middle as the top center point. Pin the knot to the board and form the triangle. Pin the angles to the board and tie the strips together in the middle as the base for the trunk
- Cut two trunks from the golden wrapping paper. Pin them to the board right under the bottom knot of the triangle
- Cut 2 cm wide strips from the black and gold plastic bag and pin them to the sides of the trunk, not only to make them more sturdy but also to give the impression of balance and harmony – connecting tree head and trunk
- Cut two suitable images from the painting book and place them in the middle of the triangles
- To make the triangle tree heads a bit more robust I used gold, black and printed paper (with suitable images) and fitted those around the triangle. Pin them to the board and watch from a distance how it looks. It needs to look like a natural extension of the tree. I used an image from the paper about the Vatican which I bordered with strips of black and gold wrapping paper
- If you need to fill space add more biblical images to the top and bottom of the board – I filled up the top right and bottom left of the board to emphasize the asymmetrical placement of the trees
- Add silver stars in different sizes for some extra sparkle
- Attach the Christmas lights to the board. Make sure not to staple them directly but use the same paper as the background to create little ‘hangers’ that hold the wire.
- Use gold laminated fabric to cover the foreground
- Cover boxes with biblical painting paper and put them in front of the board
- Make labels from the same biblical images and attach them to the bottles. Give them ties as well
- You could get some candles for the bottles and use little candlelights to adorn the foreground
- Light the Christmas lights – it will look fantastic
A display that radiates warmth and invites people to explore.
The excuse that such a display is too expensive to make is no longer valid. All materials are free, creating a treasure from trash!!!
Have a creative Christmas and a blessed New Year.
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