Can you already hear the subtle ringing of bells, heralding the beginning of the New Year's festivities? So, it's time to cast a spell on home decoration, create comfort and a magical atmosphere.

But don’t rush to buy store-bought decor. There are many cute details you can make with your own hands right in the kitchen. This "Tasteful" will show the example of fragrant and unusual beautiful crafts from citrus fruits, nuts, winter berries and spices.

New Year's Decor Ideas

How to dry fruit for decoration

Slices of oranges, limes, lemons, grapefruits and apples are prepared in two ways. First, the fruit must be cut into 5–7 mm slices and blotted with a waffle towel to remove excess juice. Then they are placed on an oven rack covered with parchment and simmered at a temperature of 130–140 degrees for about 4 hours.

Less energy-intensive way to dry even slices- use the heat of the battery. To do this, you need to place the prepared fruits on a strip of cardboard with holes often pierced with an awl. Then you should cover the rings with the same cardboard and tie them with twine. The radiator will dry the fruit in 3–5 days.

In short, all the steps look something like this: cut an orange, dry it in the oven at low temperature and hang it on a ribbon or wire on the Christmas tree. Now you may decide that if everything is so simple, then the result will be so-so. But no! The result will be excellent.

The finished orange decoration can be hung on the Christmas tree, placed in a large vase on the table, or assembled on a string into a garland. Choose what you like best.

How to make jewelry from dried oranges

1. Cut the orange into 0.6 cm thick slices.

2. Place the slices on the oven rack. Not on a baking sheet, this is important! Otherwise they will stick and dry unevenly.

3. Bake at low temperature for 4-6 hours until the oranges are completely dry (approximately 150 degrees).

The amount of baking time will depend on the thickness of the slices and how juicy the oranges themselves were. In any case, you need to wait until the oranges are completely dry and completely dry, not sticky or wet.

TIP: even old oranges are suitable for toys, so you can buy discounted ones or, at least, the cheapest ones in the store.

4. When ready, remove the wedges from the oven and find a place to place them.

5. If you want all the oranges to turn out the same, you can rearrange the oven racks from time to time. But actually oranges different shades(from dark brown to soft yellow) look much more interesting.

6. Now you can either thread beautiful ribbon to hang orange slices on the Christmas tree, or attach them with wire to the branches.

Bonus: very detailed video from Marusya DIY! @marusya_diy

New Year's crafts

Orange decor for the New Year!

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Bright and fragrant oranges have always been one of the symbols winter holidays. Orange decor will fill your home with the aromas of New Year and Christmas, and will immediately create a home festive mood! I offer you several ideas and master classes for orange decor!

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Wonderful candlesticks carved from orange!

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The first option is to make a carved flowerpot for a small candle (“floating” or “tea” candle) from a large orange (grapefruit).

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To do this, cut off the top of a citrus tree of this diameter.

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So that a candle can pass through the hole. Or you can just cut the orange in half.

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Then you need to carefully remove the pulp using a knife and spoon.

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Next, rinse the peel and again arm yourself with a knife or cookie cutters: cut holes on the walls to your liking. Now you can lower the candle into a fragrant “pot” or cover the candle with a peel, like a lampshade.

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Holes can come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. Easy to cut with nail scissors! This orange has one drawback. Deprived of pulp, it dries out. You can extend its life if you put it in the refrigerator after using it for its intended purpose. So your orange coaster can last a week or two!

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The second option is a sweet-smelling candle that seems to glow from within.

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The orange can be cut in half, or 3:1, and pour melted paraffin over the peel, freed from pulp. It is better to use an ordinary household candle - grate it and melt it. This is more convenient - after all, you can use the same wick for an orange candle. Before pouring paraffin, you can dip the edges of the orange cup in syrup and roll in sugar - you will get a frost effect, or you can decorate the edges with cloves. Such an elegant “illumination” will greatly decorate festive table!

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Or you can get creative and come up with a bunch more orange crafts!

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If you stick cloves into an orange, it will be beautiful and the house will smell delicious on New Year’s Day!

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By arranging carnations in different patterns, you will get wonderful decorations for the table or decorations for the Christmas tree!Try something like this!

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YOU CAN MAKE ROSES FROM ORANGE

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Carefully cut the orange peel in a circle with a knife, trying not to capture its entire layer - let it be thinner.

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Then roll it into a spiral to form a rose and secure with a toothpick.

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You can immediately dry the resulting flowers in the oven and decorate them as you wish - with gold or silver paint, rhinestones and sparkles.

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These roses can be used to decorate a holiday table, a decorative wreath and candles, or simply hang on a Christmas tree.

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But in their natural form, orange flowers are also very good, natural, and most importantly, they smell great! To fill your home with a New Year's atmosphere, you don't need to dry orange roses in the oven - about a week after making, they will begin to dry out on their own, and essential oil, standing out from the peel, it will smell delicate for a couple of months.

Master Class Orange-fragrant decoration for the Christmas tree

New Year and the smell of citrus fruits are a favorite association with childhood!

This year my Christmas tree is dressed up in country style. In general, we decorated the Christmas tree with everything that came to hand. And, although oranges and tangerines were not even close to the village (at least in our latitudes), they are also a “harvest”. As my child joked, looking at the result: “it only lacks sausage, everything else is already there” :))

But there’s no way without handmade items, so I decided to make jewelry from citrus fruits:

Cut the orange, lemon and lime (it would be nice to also have grapefruit, but I didn’t have any) into thin slices. I cut the first batch 0.5 cm and threw the result in the trash. You need to cut into 2-3 mm slices, then when dried they do not lose color and turn out translucent. Place on baking paper, top with chili peppers and place in the oven overnight (temperature 60 degrees).

We got completely dry slices.

I painted the clothespins with acrylic and “aged” them with potassium permanganate:

The peppers turned out translucent :). We tie them to clothespins:

And here is the result:

For such a tree and balls you need villagers. To do this, I replaced the tinsel in the transparent balls with straw (I think it could be replaced with thick yarn, it should also turn out interesting).

And now it’s all for the Christmas tree!

Citrus fruits for preparing dried oranges for the Christmas tree must be without damage (there should be no marks from blows, cracks, or signs of frostbite on the peel). You can take not only oranges, but also other citrus fruits, for example, grapefruit, lemon, lime.

Citrus fruits need to be washed very well to get rid of dust, dirt and possible wax deposits. Wipe dry.

Using a sharp knife, cut the oranges into thin slices. The thickness should be approximately 0.3-0.4 cm, but not more than 0.5 cm, otherwise they will take a very long time to dry in the oven. Try to cut the oranges so that all the slices are the same thickness throughout, because the thin edge will dry out and start to burn faster, while the thick edge will remain moist.

Now you need to blot the orange slices with paper towels or napkins to remove as much juice as possible. To do this, cover a cutting board with several layers of paper towels, lay out orange circles in an even layer, cover with another layer of towels and press lightly with your palm so that excess moisture is absorbed into them.

Place the baking sheet in an oven previously preheated to 70-80 degrees to dry for 4-6 hours. The drying time for oranges will depend on the thickness of the fruit itself and the characteristics of your oven. I dried my oranges for 4.5 hours in a gas oven. To achieve a temperature of 70-80 degrees, you can insert a wooden spatula with the oven door slightly open.

Every hour you need to turn the citrus slices over so that they dry evenly.

If the smaller circles on the baking sheet are already completely ready, they can be removed from the oven: carefully separate them from the paper and transfer them to a wire rack to cool.

Cool the finished dried oranges completely on a baking sheet or wire rack.

You can make fragrant decorations from such dried oranges by attaching them to bay leaf and a cinnamon stick. This bunch will fill the room with spicy aromas.

If you want to preserve dried oranges longer and use them as an addition to dishes, then store them in a tightly closed jar. It is enough to grind dried oranges in a coffee grinder or blender and add them to fish and meat dishes, and also use them to make cocktails and add them to baked goods.