3 Christmas Projects to DIY with Friends
Everyone loves spending time over the holiday season with family and friends. Get into the spirit with a gathering that not only provides face-to-face interaction, but some homemade gifts as well. Here are some winter holiday and/or Christmas projects you can complete with your friends to celebrate the season.
1. Candles
Your friends and family will enjoy receiving candles from you as holiday gifts and you can enjoy time with friends while you make them yourself. Here's how!
- Collect your supplies, including beeswax or paraffin. You will also need wicks, an old pot or tea kettle, scented oil, candle forms or jars, and any additions you would like to make to your candles.
- Cut wicks from string about 5” longer than the candle form you are using. You can also purchase pre-made wicks from the craft store.
- Melt your selected wax in a pot or tea kettle. Add any scents you prefer at this point.
- Dip your wick into the melted wax and place over your form, jar, or carton with the top end wrapped around a skewer or pencil.
- With the wick touching the bottom of the container, pour the melted wax into the mold.
- Add small pine cones, larger chips of wax, or shells to the candle for decoration.
2. Wood Christmas Trees
If your friends are more into woodworking than craft glue, why not make a statement piece for the front porch with an easy wood holiday tree?
- Cut boards. Your wood tree will be made from planks of even-thickness wood. 1x4 is a good size. Make your longest piece around three feet wide. Take about six inches off each additional board, making six in all. You can adjust the size of your tree based on your personal preferences.
- Create a base. Crisscross two boards to form an old-fashioned tree stand. Then, secure a vertical board to the base firmly. Make sure your vertical board is stable enough to handle the weight of the boards you will attach.
- Attach each of your cut boards perpendicular to the vertical board starting with the shortest piece at the top and working down to the longest piece at the bottom.
- Paint or decorate the boards anyway you like with text or images.
3. Wreaths
Wreaths are easy to make and a fun project to work on with friends. The best thing about wreaths is that there are endless ways to make and decorate them, so use your creativity to make each one unique.
- Lay out the options. This is a fun group project because everyone can pool the craft supplies they already have. From natural pine cones sourced outside to ribbon and Christmas ornaments, everything is fair game when it comes to wreath making.
- Decide on a form. You can use a vine wreath shaped into a heart, a foam circle, a wire frame made from a coat hanger...get creative!
- Add a foundation. Use bread ties, glue, or gardening wire to attach the base layer to your wreath. Use boughs cut from your tree, vines of holly berries, fabric, tulle, or burlap.
- Attach finishing touches. Give your wreath a personalized look with painted wooden letters glued to the front, or add nuts, berries, or fruit. You can adorn your wreath with a strand of battery-powered LED lights or ribbons and bows.
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![Dawn Hammon]()
Dawn Hammon has thrived in freelance writing and editor roles for nearly a decade. She has lived, worked, and attended school in Oregon for many years. Dawn currently spends her days convincing her children she is still smarter than them while creating new experiences with her husband of 24 years.  Her multiple interests have led her to frequently undergo home improvement projects. She enjoys sharing the hard-earned knowledge that comes with it with the audience of DoItYourself.com. Dawn and her sister make up a power-tool loving duo that teaches classes to local women with the goal of empowering them to tackle their fears and become comfortable with power tools. Tapping into her enthusiasm for saving money and devotion to sustainable practices, Dawn has recently launched a passion project aimed at connecting eco-friendly products and socially-responsible companies with consumers interested in making conscientious purchases, better informing themselves about products on the market, and taking a stand in favor of helping to save the planet. When she is not providing stellar online content for local, national, and international businesses or trolling the internet for organic cotton clothing, you might find her backpacking nearby hills and valleys, traveling to remote parts of the globe, or expanding her vocabulary in a competitive game of Scrabble. Dawn holds a bachelor's degree in psychology, which these days she mostly uses to provide therapy for her kids and spouse. Most recently, I worked for a small local professional organizing and estate sale company for four years where I learned a ton about organizing and/or disposing of just about anything. She was raised in a tool-oriented, hands-on, DIY family. Her dad worked in the floor covering business and owned local floor covering businesses, so of course selling floor covering was one of her first jobs. Her brother was a contractor for about 30 years and site supervisor for Habitat for Humanity. I worked with him often, building decks, painting houses, framing in buildings, etc. With her sister, she holds power tool classes to empower women who are scared or have never used them. Not quite homesteaders, she did grow up with a farm, tractors, motorcycles, expansive gardens, hay fields, barns, and lots of repairs to do. Plus she and her family preserved foods, raised cattle and pigs, chopped and hauled firewood, and performed regular maintenance on two households, outbuildings, fencing, etc. As an adult, she has owned two houses. The first one she personally ripped out a galley kitchen and opened it up to the living area, plus updated every door, floor covering, and piece of trim in the place. In her current home, she's tackled everything from installing real hardwood flooring to revamping the landscape.![H.R. Helm]()
H.R. Helm is an accomplished DIY craftsman. He has been DIY since childhood and is now a septuagenarian. He is experienced in wood and metal construction, having designed and built several houses and metal buildings. He built every permanent building on his current homestead and did all the plumbing and electrical work. He has several years experience as a professional cabinet builder, and he is an accomplished auto repairman, having operated an auto repair business for many years. He currently has a home shop where he sharpens and rebuilds saws, repairs lawn mowers, mobility scooters, hydraulic jacks, and anything else that comes along. He also builds custom tools for metal working. Invention prototypes are another of his many accomplishments. He owned and operated a manufacturing business building Compact Utility Vehicles for homeowner use. H.R. enjoys making jams and jellies during fruit season along with cooking meals. He is committed to outdoor cooking in a Bar-B-Q pit he welded together several years ago. He maintains fruit and nut trees along with helping his wife with a vegetable garden. He farmed commercial garden produce for several years. It helps to have over 50 years of farming and ranching experience. Employment/Education Highlights ASE Certified Master Auto Technician Certified Welder Cross country truck driver -- over dimensional freight Design Engineer/Project Manager for injection molded plastic company Bus Driver/Substitute Teacher Inventor with two patents (weight training – anti-rollback for manual wheelchair) BS in Industrial Technology
