If you find yourself with a home or office in need of decorating for the holidays, you usually face one of two options: Dig out the same old ornaments you've had tucked away in a basement box since 1982, or pick up yet another collection of Santas and snowmen to dangle for the next two weeks.

Why not make your own decorations instead? That way you can add a fresh take on your annual display, and avoid buying yet another box full of disposable plastic. You can also take the opportunity to put up some ornaments that diverge from the usual themes, replacing them with something totally awesome - like, say, bad-ass Star Wars villains.

Here are two ideas you can use to add elements from a galaxy far, far away to your holiday celebrations. For links to the sites of their creators, check the bottom of the post:

1. Darth Vader and Boba Fett/Clone Trooper Snowflakes

One dedicated blogger shared his wife's elegant introduction of the Imperial forces to the family home for Christmas.

Here are the snowflakes:

And here are the instructions:

2. Lego Death Star Tree Ornament

Chris McVeigh, a Halifax-based illustrator and designer, has developed instructions and a parts list to help you build fantastic ornaments out of Lego, including a representation of the Death Star space base from Star Wars. Not only does he provide a comprehensive list of the Lego parts needed, but an instruction guide, a model file AND and alternate model file.

Here is the parts list from his instructional PDF. To really get a sense of Chris's sense of detail and the many amazing things he thinks you can do with Lego, visit his site by following the links below.

Links:

Chris McVeigh's Lego Ornaments

Instructions for Chris McVeigh's Death Star

Star Wars Paper Snowflakes

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