Hands on Traditional skills and where to learn them

Christmas cards, decorations and wrapping paper

What are they?Handmade Christmas decorations, cards and gift wrap include everything from strings of origami-style coloured paper decorations on your Christmas tree to pop-up nativity cards, paper angels and gift boxes covered in hand-designed paper.

In many European countries – Germany, for example – these traditions never died out, but when Ireland became awash with cheap imports, handmade lost its hold. This year, making your own Christmas cards and decorations has come back into fashion, partly because of frugality and partly because of a renewed pride in giving something personally made and designed.

How is it done?There are many ways to make decorative wrapping. "I show people how to cut out seasonal shapes – holly leaves, snowflakes, Christmas trees – from stencil paper and then sponge paint through the stencil on to light cartridge paper," says Joe Coveney, an artist who offers workshops to adults and children in Create Christmas, a temporary creative space on the top floor of the Powerscourt Centre, Dublin.

The cutouts from the stencils can become the base for Christmas-tree decorations. Various folding and cutting techniques are also used to make snow angels, paper lanterns, snowflakes and spheres to hang in windows or on Christmas trees.

“In the workshops, we also cut out Christmas scenes and glue them down on boxes to make gift boxes for hampers of homemade food or other gifts.”

How long does it take?Making a sheet of wrapping paper will take about half an hour. Covering a box with handmade paper will take anything from 10 to 30 minutes, depending on the box. It's best to join a workshop or get all your materials together and give yourself a few hours.

Where do I sign up?There are plenty of opportunities to join workshops on making your own Christmas decorations. Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane, on Parnell Square North, is holding Christmas-themed art workshops today at 3pm (six- to 10-year-olds can make wrapping paper; €5); on Saturday, December 10th, at 2pm (children of all ages can make paper angels; admission free); and on Saturday, December 17th, at 3pm (seven to 11-year-olds can make snow globes; €5). Call 01-2225564.

Artists at the Red Stables Studios in St Anne’s Park, Dublin, are holding free drop-in Christmas-tree-decoration workshops today, tomorrow and on December 10th (noon-3.15pm) and 11th (noon-4pm); call 01-2227843.

Joe Coveney has decoration- and card-making workshops on the top floor of the Powerscourt Centre, off Grafton Street in Dublin, on Thursdays and Fridays at 1pm and 6pm (for adults); and on Saturdays at 11am and 3pm and on Sundays at 3pm; €10 per person; call 086-2472371.