NATCHEZ — A mental escape to winter holidays helped cool off participants Saturday at a Christmas in July workshop, where they learned how to save some green for the season.

The workshop, sponsored by the Green Alliance, taught approximately 20 participants how reuse old Christmas cards, aluminum cans, gift-wrappings, ribbons and more to create gifts and decorations at little or no cost.

Teri Roddy taught the group, which gathered around a table at the Historic Natchez Foundation like Santa’s elves with their crafts, how to make ornaments out of used light bulbs.

Roddy said wrapping Mardi Gras beads around the bulbs or covering the them with fabric and gluing leftover gift wrapping ribbon at the base transforms the lights into bell-shaped ornaments.

Roddy, a interior designer and owner of Faux de Lis Decorative Arts, said the ornaments make great gifts, and everything she used to decorate the bulbs came from a box of left over wrappings or fabric.

“It’s my box-o’-junk,” Roddy said. “I don’t throw anything away.”

Roddy uses floodlights, candelabra lights, regular incandescent lights and even the newer CFL floodlights for the ornaments, she said.

Nathalie Harris showed participants how to make textured ornaments using old lace or crochet and clay.

By laying lace on top of a clay ornament, which she cut out with a cookie cutter, Harris created a unique ornament with the roll of a rolling pin.

“Just roll (the lace) on (the clay) and peel it back,” Harris said.

Harris, a artist at Natchez Clay, said she first got the idea for the design when she was looking for a way to preserve a piece of her grandmother’s antique lace, which was at risk of rotting.

The ornament preserved the heirloom and made a memorable decoration, she said.

Harris strings the ornaments with wire to hang them and adds decorative beads to the wire for another hint of character.

“Then you get to go to the bead shop,” she said.

While Harris usually adds a glaze and fires the ornaments in a kiln, the workshop participants used air-dry clay Saturday, so everyone could take an ornament home.

Deborah McNeal demonstrated how to reuse old cards with the group.

By cutting out graphics from cards someone has already received and gluing the design on construction paper, McNeal showed the group how to make a new card.

McNeal, an artist at ArtsNatchez Gallery, also demonstrated how to make luminaries out of aluminum cans by poking holes in them.

Janis Rushing, who traveled from Brookhaven for the workshop, said she has purchased light bulb ornaments herself, and looked forward to being able to make her own after the workshop.

“I think the kids will enjoy it,” she said of the Christmas crafts.

Yvonne Murray, who organized the workshop, said the workshop demonstrated how much interest in recycling and creativity exists.

“Don’t throw anything away, and let it be your decoration,” Murray said.