Dried orange slice garlands are one of my favourite DIY zero waste Christmas decorations. They’re easy to make, they bring out the Christmassy feels in me, setting the tone for the holiday period and they add lovely colour and smells to my home.

In this blog post, I’m going to show you how you can make them zero waste style and how to store them so you can use them every year.

Eight dried orange slices are arranged haphazardly on a white background. There is star anise interspersed between the slices, two green wooden Christmas trees in the too left, some pine cones in the top right and some clear glass baubles.

Instructions

Six slices of orange are layered in a row on a wooden chopping board. A large silver knife is parallel. There is a plate in the background with more slices on it and 3 full oranges to the right.

1. Start by slicing your oranges to about 3-4mm thick. The thinner they are the quicker they will dry but you don’t want them too thin so they end up breaking.

One orange slice has been placed on a small green towel. There are whole and sliced oranges in the background

2. Then, soak up as much moisture as you can from each slice. Usually paper towels are used but last year I chose to use a cut up tea towel and it worked just fine.

Five rows of 4 or 5 orange slices are sat on a metal oven rack ontop of a black oven tray.

3. Next, place them on a metal rack on an oven tray. No need for baking paper here and in fact if you lay them on baking paper it will make them soggy. Using a metal rack makes sure that the air is distributed around the slices evenly.

A left hand is holding one orange slice up to the camera and it has a small hole in the pith at the top. In the background there are other slices placed on a metal oven rack ontop of a black oven tray.

4. Push some cloves into the pith of each slice to add an extra Christmassy smell or leave as they are if you prefer.

5. Preheat the oven to about 80° celsius and dry for about 4hrs turning them every 40 mins.

6. Turn the oven off when they start to turn brown and leave them in there as the oven cools.

7. If they still feel sticky then leave them out in the air to completely dry them before using or storing.

8. Once you are happy with them, use some thin natural string, cotton thread or I used lace weight hemp yarn and a needle to string them all together and hang them up. Thread the needle through the flesh of the slices rather than the pith.

How to Store

I’m sure that once you have made them you will want to keep them for next year and the year after that. They need to be stored correctly to make sure they keep and don’t go mouldy.

Make sure they are completely dry before storing them, then wrapped them in paper and store in a separate cardboard box in a cool dry place.

I would love to see your orange slice decorations. Let me know if you make them and how they turn out.

How to Make a Dried Orange Slice Garland

Instructions

How to Store

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DIY Zero Waste Christmas Decorations