A Christmas rose DIY

Last week I shared our main living room Christmas tree with you and today I wanted to follow up with how I made the Christmas rose I decorated the tree with. Warning 😉 I’m not even sure I can call this a Christmas rose DIY. I probably should call it a hack instead because it is just that simple. But who doesn’t love an easy, quick, and affordable little DIY? I know I do, especially for Christmas when time is sparse and you have to spend your money on gifts.

Easy Christmas rose DIY

More names of the German Christmas rose

• Helleborus, Hellebore
• Christrose oder Weihnachtsrose (in German)
• Snow Rose
• Winter Rose

{Below you can find out some more details about the Christmas rose if you missed it in my last post. }

Some history about the Christmas Rose:

• It is the German equivalent of a poinsettia.
• The Christ Rose is not an actual rose but belongs to the buttercup family.
• The rose was already planted about 2000 years ago for medicinal use. The plant is highly poisonous with beautiful pure white flowers and blooms in the snow around the Christmas season until March. In the middle ages, the plant was looked upon as a wonder drug. People threw flowers on the floors of their homes to ward off evil. They also blessed their animals with it and used it to ward off the power of witches. On the contrary, people believed that witches also used the herb for spells and that sorcerers used the flower to make themselves invisible.
• The Christmas rose legend tells that it sprouted in the snow from the tears of a young girl who had no gift to give to baby Jesus in Bethlehem. Read more about it HERE.
• One of the better known German Christmas carols, “Es ist ein Ros entsprungen” is about the Christmas rose.
• There is also a book Christmas Roses: Legends for Advent by Swedish author Selma Lagerlöf with dramatic Christmas stories for older children which I found while searching for more historical info about the Christmas Rose.
• I originally wanted to buy a faux version of the Christmas Rose and noticed that they were all very expensive and not really common in the US. So I came up with a little hack to make my own which I will share with you next week.

Materials used for Christmas rose DIY

• faux white poppy flowers ( I bought 2 packs of 10 for $16 each)
• craft scissors
• yellow craft paint

Step-by-step instructions

Cut the flower to a pointy shape as shown below.

The poppy flowers have round petals and it is very easy to cut them into a more pointy shape

Next, I used my iron on the lowest setting with a fabric napkin to open up some of the more stubborn flowers that wouldn’t open all the way.

To paint the inside of the flower yellow, all you have to do is open up the entire flower with your hand and stipple on the yellow acrylic paint with a hard bristle brush as shown.

Lastly, I pulled off the stem and set the flower head into my Christmas tree to dry.

That’s literally it. Nothing else is involved.

The flowers are a subtle, meaningful, and affordable addition to our Christmas tree and wrapped presents and I love them.

I hope you like this little DIY/hack and let me know if you make your own.

Also, check out my favorite German Christmas decorations.

Tschüß,