The festive season brings saturation marketing of many material things which most don’t need and obligatory rehashed Christmas news stories about more binge spending and consuming.

How refreshing to see the 1 Million Women campaign promoting a No Waste Festive Season and encouraging a focus on moments rather than things.

At our house, we’ve been trying to minimise Christmas fuss and waste for years.  We’ve used the same fabric wrapping (secured with safety pins) and ribbons for a decade and they are still going strong and looking good.

This year the 365-day Sew it Again project adds another imperative to reduce waste. With the 12 days of Christmas rapidly approaching, here’s an upcycled decoration made from waste. Sew 323 is a Christmas bauble hand-crafted from waste T-shirt ribbon. Create the ribbon from an unworn T-shirt as outlined in Sew 217, wind it into a ball, pin the loose end (as per photos below) to create a loop, then decorate it however you wish. I used old gold fabric paint (which had dried out but rehydrated OK when I added water) with the lumpy bits of paint creating additional texture on the bauble.