
by Roberta Guiotto
Orange and its gold dust
Christmas is certainly the most heartfelt holiday, the one that among all manages to involve adults and children, but for the little ones it is real magic, it is mystery, it is anticipation… And it is pure joy to make tree decorations and other Christmas-themed crafts together with them. Not everyone knows that oranges are a symbolic fruit of Christmas, of the atmosphere surrounding it, and there are so many things that can be done with its peel, which can even become a gold powder: from perfumers for the home to its use in the kitchen on sweet and savory dishes, passing through flavored drinks and herbal teas. All that remains is to get oranges (but lemons, tangerines, grapefruits are also fine) the important thing is that they are organic. First we wash the oranges well with a mixture of baking soda and vinegar, then we remove the peel with a peeler that will help us not to remove the white and bitter part. Now we move on to drying: you can use a desiccator or place the peels on a radiator or wood stove or, again, in an oven at 50° for 2 to 3 hours. Let them cool after which we use the kitchen blender to pulverize the peel until we get a golden powder! Now all that’s left is to use it as we most desire: you can mix it with coconut sugar (found in herbalist shops or organic supermarkets) and place it in glass jars to give as gifts to flavor herbal teas and sweets, or put it in cloth bags to scent drawers, or employ it in the bathtub for a citrus-scented bath.
Creative recycling
Decorating the Christmas tree, the house and the table is a tradition I never give up, but for the past few years I also like to use natural materials or other items I already own, so as to give them new life and make Christmas special through creative recycling. Something nice to make together with the children are Christmas balls for the tree and we will create them using paper towel or toilet paper rolls of which we will only need the inner cardboard part.
Needed: rolls, sturdy scissors, ruler, pencil, hot glue or glue stick, white uniposca and markers, colored ribbons and whatever else you want (glitter, stickers, etc.).
We start by flattening the roll, then helping ourselves with the ruler we measure 2 cm from the edge (for one ball we need to get three strips), draw them, cut them and we will thus have the rings where we will make small triangles on the shortest side, keeping on the sides a few millimeters to prevent the rings from opening. Now we can decorate them with white uniposca (which is opaque) or with other markers. Let’s outline the edges and make polka dots, hearts, stars, or write Merry Christmas and whatever we want. Now let’s join them by putting some glue in the center of the first ring, place the second ring by crossing it over the first, put some more glue on the second so we can cross and glue the last ring. We wait a few seconds for the glue to dry, tie the ribbon and voila, here are our original Christmas balls–cute, aren’t they? Another nice idea is to use them instead of the classic bows to close gifts, writing the name on them with lots of pretty colors. Have fun and… Merry Christmas!
Published by: Editor on 6/12/2022