Sick of store-bought Christmas ornaments? Want to add a little individual flair to your tree? Or just looking for a fun Christmas project for you and your family? You've come to the right place! This article will provide you with some great homemade ornament ideas, all of which are low-cost and easy to make. Happy crafting!
[Edit]Steps
[Edit]Making Easy DIY Decorations
Spray paint pine cones. Collect some pine cones - large or small - and spray paint them gold or silver. Attach a piece a ribbon to the top and hang from your tree. Alternatively, roll the pine cone in some glue and then in some glitter for a sparkly finish!
Make a popcorn and cranberry garland. Take a needle and some strong thread (nylon or waxed cotton), a bowl of air-popped popcorn and a cup of cranberries. Thread the needle, making a large knot from the end. Begin sewing the popcorn and cranberries onto the thread, alternating between each, or using any pattern you like. Make a large knot at the end of the string. Hang on your indoor Christmas tree or, even better, on an outside tree to provide a tasty treat for the birds! [1]
Make Lego presents. This is an easy one for kids to make! Assemble some large Lego pieces to form a square or rectangular present shape. Take a length of colored ribbon and tie it around the Lego, making a bow on top. Place your Lego presents under the tree or hang them from the branches!
Make a gumdrop snowflake. Take one large, ball-shaped gumdrop and stick six toothpicks into it, at regular intervals. Stack a selection of smaller gumdrops onto each toothpick until they are full. Attach a ribbon for hanging on the Christmas tree, or simply balance the gumdrop snowflake on a branch.[2]
Make a jigsaw Rudolph. Grab five jigsaw pieces (two of which slot into each other) and paint them light brown. Take one piece of jigsaw to form the base, and glue the two attached pieces to the bottom half. This will be Rudolph's face. Take the remaining two jigsaw pieces (unattached) and glue them to the top half of the base piece to form the antlers. Glue a circle of red felt (or a red gumdrop) to the bottom of the jigsaw to form a nose, along with two googly eyes. Attach a ribbon to the back for hanging.
Make cinnamon bundles. Take five or six cinnamon sticks and form a bundle. Tie with a piece of red or green ribbon and make a bow on top. Hang from the branches of the Christmas tree for a pretty and fragrant ornament!
Make a photo cube. Buy a wooden/foam/cardboard cube, then print out six christmas photos (you, friends, trees, etc.) Cut the photos to the right size for each side. Using glue (hot glue is best), paste the photos onto each side of cube. Attach a string to hang. If you want, you can write on one side.
[Edit]Making Salt Dough Ornaments
Gather the ingredients and equipment. To make your salt dough ornaments, you will need one cup of plain flour, half a cup of salt and half a cup of water. You will also need Christmas themed cookie cutters (stars, Christmas trees, angels, wreaths, etc.) a cookie sheet, a rolling pin, some toothpicks, ribbon, and acrylic paints and glitter glue for decorating.
Make the salt dough. In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, salt and water and stir until it forms a dough. Turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth. If the dough is too sticky, add a little more flour -- though not too much, as this will cause the dough to crack.
Use cookie cutters to cut out shapes. With a floured rolling pin, roll out the dough until it is about in thickness. Use your Christmas themed cookie cutters to cut out shapes in the dough. Place each shape on a floured surface as you cut out the rest of the dough.
Make holes in each ornament for hanging. Before you bake your ornaments, you will need to make a little hole at the top of each where you can thread a ribbon to hang the ornament from your tree. Use a toothpick to make punch a hole near the top of each ornament, rotating the toothpick a little to make the hole wide enough for your ribbon to fit through.
Bake the ornaments. Place your salt dough ornaments on a floured cookie sheet and place on the middle shelf of an oven preheated to . Bake for two hours, then remove from the oven, place on a wire rack and allow to cool completely.
Decorate. Once the salt dough ornament have cooled, you can decorate them using the acrylic paints and glitter glue. Depending on personal preference, you can use a small paint brush to paint on intricate details, or you can simply cover the decoration in one block color. You can also glue on sequins, button and crystals for extra decoration.
Thread the ribbon. Cut a length of ribbon - preferably in red, green or white - and thread it through the hole at the top of the ornament. Secure with a knot and hang from the tree. If you like, you can write the date on the back of the ornament to remember when you made it![3]
[Edit]Making Felt Snowman Ornaments
Gather your materials. To make your felt snowman ornament you will need pieces of felt in white, brown, orange and black. You will also need a piece of white ribbon (approximately 5 inches in length), a sewing needle and thread (in colors matching the felt), a pen, a scissors, some polyester fiberfill and a sheet of paper.
Cut out the body of the snowman. Draw the outline of a snowman onto the sheet of paper. Make the snowman whatever shape you like -- two snowballs high, three snowballs high, fat, skinny -- it's up to you.
Cut the paper snowman outline, then place it on a piece of white felt.
Use your pen to trace the outline of the snowman onto the felt, then cut it out with the scissors.
Trace another snowman outline onto a second piece of felt and cut that one out too.
You should now have two identical snowman outlines.
Cut out the snowman's arms and facial features.
Cut out five small circles from the piece of black felt. These will form the snowman's eyes, along with his three coal buttons.
Cut out a small triangle from the orange felt. This will form the carrot for the snowman's nose.
Cut out two stick shapes from the brown felt. These will be the snowman's arms.
Sew on the snowman's eyes, nose and buttons. Take one of the white felt snowman outlines and hand-stitch the eyes, carrot nose and coal buttons into place. Use thread of a corresponding color for each piece, i.e. orange thread for the nose, and black thread for the other pieces.
Assemble the snowman.
Take the two white felt body pieces and line them up, placing the piece with the sewn-on features on top.
Take the brown felt arms and place them between the two body pieces, sticking out at an angle.
Take the length of white ribbon, fold it over, and insert the end between the two body pieces at the top of the snowman's head. This will form the hanging loop for the finished ornament.
Sew it all together. Take your needle and some white thread and hand-stitch the two body pieces together, leaving a seam allowance of only .
As you're stitching, make sure to catch both of the snowman's arms and the looped thread in a stitch, in order to secure them in place.
Don't stitch the entire snowman closed just yet; leave a space of about to an inch open at the bottom.
Stuff the snowman. Take your polyester fiberfill and stuff it into the snowman, making him nice and plump. Once you've done this, you can finish the snowman by stitching the snowman closed. Hang your jolly felt snowman on the Christmas tree and admire your handiwork![4]
[Edit]Making Glitter Ball Ornaments
Collect some clear glass ornaments. They can be any size you like, just make sure that they have easily removable tops.
Remove the tops and pour in a little floor wax. Gently remove the tops from the glass ornaments (you don't want to damage them) and pour a small amount of floor wax or floor finish into the glass ball.
This may sound strange, but this is what allows the glitter to stick to the inside of the ball. Just make sure the product you use is acrylic based and clear drying.
Gently swirl the product around the inside of the ornament, making sure the entire inside surface is coated in floor wax.
Once you're done, you can pour the floor wax back into the bottle. Waste not, want not!
Grab a selection of different colored glitters. Pour a substantial amount of your chosen glitter into the glass ornament and swirl it around until the glitter completely covers the interior of the ornament. Shake any excess back into the container of glitter.
You can choose any colors you like --gold, silver, red, blue, green, purple -- whichever ones go with the color scheme for your tree.
If you want to be really wild, you could even try mixing a few different colors for a real disco ball effect.
Replace the top. Once the glitter has dried, you can replace the top of the ornament. Use a little to secure it in place if it feels in any way loose.
Decorate the outside. If you like, you can leave the glitter ball ornaments as they are. Alternatively, you can decorate the outsides using snowflake- or star-shaped scrapbook stickers and some diamante sequins.[5]
[Edit]Making Clothespin Snowflake Ornaments
Take eight wooden clothespins. Eight wooden clothespins will make one snowflake ornament. Carefully separate each clothespin, removing the metal springs.
Glue the two halves of each clothespin together. Take some hot glue or wood glue and stick the flat sides of each clothespin together. Take a piece of ribbon, fold it in half, and insert both ends between two of the wooden pieces before you glue them. This will allow you to hang the ornament later.
Make the snowflake. Assemble the snowflake as follows:
Take two of the glued-together pieces and align the flattened edges at the top to form a right-angle. Attach two more pieces to form an X shape.
Take the remaining four glued-together pieces and stick one in between each right angle. You should now have a snowflake.
Paint the snowflake. Paint the snowflake using white or gold spray paint. Paint with a slight, glittery shimmer can look very nice. Stick sequins or jewels onto the ornament as you see fit.[6]
[Edit]Printable Snowman Template
Snowman Template
[Edit]Tips
If your tree does not come pre-lit, pick up some lights and string them.
Another great thing is to pick up some fake snow spray and spray that on the tips of your tree. Also get some candy canes and hang them on the tree.
Try to make this a family activity and have fun!
Get all of the supplies you need for making D.I.Y. decorations at a craft store, or check out your local dollar store or Walmart.
[Edit]Warnings
Be careful with the tacks and metal hooks.
[Edit]Related wikiHows
Make Christmas Ornaments with Dough
[Edit]References
[Edit]Quick Summary
↑ http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/how-to-make-a-popcorn-cranberry-garland.html
↑ http://www.parents.com/holiday/christmas/crafts/handmade-gifts/#page=10
↑ http://theimaginationtree.com/2011/12/easy-salt-dough-ornaments.html
↑ http://www.bhg.com/christmas/crafts/make-a-frosty-friend/
↑ http://theornamentgirl.com/blog/being-crafty/how-to-make-glitter-christmas-ornaments-diy/
↑ http://www.bystephanielynn.com/2011/12/clothespin-snowflakes-handmade-ornament-no-25.html
