I am not especially good at crafts. I never seem to have all the items to make a specific craft and I gravitate towards open-ended art. This holiday season, I’m going to provide my kids with raw materials as well as images for inspiration to see what they come up with. I bought construction paper, glitter, glue, googly eyes, craft sticks, and fancy pipe cleaners.
In case this is an epic fail, I’m also including some wonderful ornament crafts from other bloggers. We’ve never made ornaments before so we are venturing into new territory but I think homemade is much nicer than purchased.
Kids in the after-school program at our elementary school hold a craft fair fundraiser. We usually buy ornaments at their sale for our tree. Aren’t they cute? We’ll use these as inspiration.
DIY Ornaments to Make with Your Kids
This reindeer is adorable. Too bad we don’t have corks. I should save them for next year.
Hmm… How to cut the sign out? And is that puffy paint for the sign? Don’t have that either. Sigh!
We could handle this one except for those sparkly jewel things. Glitter instead? I think I have plastic beads somewhere…
What a cute idea for toilet paper rolls. But that music? I guess you can cut up an old sheet of music? I don’t have felt for the hat. I guess we could use construction paper.
I can’t pull this one off. Not sure how to cut out the pieces and we don’t have paper or old Christmas cards but something to think about for next year!
Homemade Ornaments Kids Can Make
For homemade ornaments that kids can create, I turned to Kids Blogger Network Christmas Pinterest board for great craft ideas. Please feel free to search here for ideas. I found great ideas here: 30 homemade ornament ideas from Hands On: As We Grow, 10 more ideas from No Time for Flashcards, and 15 from Red Ted Art.
I pulled a few more that I think we can pull off with the limited craft supplies we have. I’ll update this post when we make ornaments this weekend — we just got our tree so we are motivated!
CrafToArt has a great one using old bracelets and ribbons. I love the recycling aspect too!
Two Big Two Little has a craft stick ornament idea that is perfect for us! I love the Rudolph one and we’ve purchased these in years past from our school craft fair! Oh drat. I don’t know if I have pom pom balls. (This is why I am bad at crafts!)
Happy Holligans makes alphabet letters. My kids would love this!
Our Homemade Christmas Ornaments
Someone tried to play my son’s guitar using a pencil as a bow. As a result, the strings were damaged and his guitar teacher switched them all out so they wouldn’t snap on him. We used the old strings to make this Christmas tree ornament. My son added a tag and voila! Our first homemade DIY ornament. A wire would work as well.
PickyKidPix, who’s 10, took a kids’ sewing class and made these lovely ornaments using felt, fabric and ribbon. You don’t have to use a sewing machine though! Try fabric glue or just tacking the edges down with a needle and thread. She loved using the sewing machine’s fancy stitches.
Please link up with any posts you have of Christmas Ornament Crafts for Kids! Thank you! I have more that we made here. CapabilityMom has her post here.
p.s. I posted on how to make your own personalized labels for gifts last year.
The 12 Days of Shopping
Saturday, December 1: Make Your Own Gifts with granola two ways. Hers and Mine.
Sunday, December 2: Kids Make Gifts Craft, Clove Fruit and Crafts.
Monday, December 3: Personalized Gifts, Hers and Mine.
Tuesday, December 4: Father-in-Law/Dad and Mother-in-Law/Mom
Wednesday, December 5: Tutors/Teachers
Thursday, December 6: High Tech/Low Tech
Friday, December 7: Hostess/Doing Good
Saturday, December 8: Sanitation Engineers, Mail Carriers, Hairdresser, Delivery People, Babysitter, Cleaning People, Dog Walker/Dog Trainer
Sunday, December 9: Husband, Me (Our Own List), CapabilityMom’s List
Monday, December 10: Cats/Dogs
Tuesday, December 11: Quick Gifts from Whole Foods and Gourmet Food Store
Wednesday, December 12: ’Cause I Am So Together, Last Minute Home Made Gifts, Homemade Ornament Crafts for Kids and Capability:Mom’s Homemade Gift
Follow PragmaticMom’s board DIY Instead of Buy on Pinterest.
Follow PragmaticMom’s board DIY Instead of Buy: Kids on Pinterest.
My books:
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Food for the Future: Sustainable Farms Around the World
- Junior Library Guild Gold selection
- Massachusetts Book Award Long List
- Selected as one of 100 Outstanding Picture Books of 2023 by dPICTUS and featured at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair
- Starred review from School Library Journal
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- Imagination Soup’s 35 Best Nonfiction Books of 2023 for Kids
Amazon / Barefoot Books / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Amazon / Scholastic / Signed or Inscribed by Me
Great ornaments! I have felt…and some glitter beads and a hot glue gun – borrow them anytime! I forgot about a great tile craft that the Auburndale Community Library just had for kids. Decorative tile – take plain tile, pretty paper and some Mod Podge! I’ll Instagram it later – glue some felt on the back so it doesn’t scratch the table. Thanks for all the great ideas! Next Friday I can finish my shopping with that pop up artist store at L’Aroma Cafe!
Hi Nancy,
We are starting to make ornaments now and I’ll add them to the post. A wreath made out of old guitar strings, and two Xmas trees that my daughter made in a sewing class. I need to use the pine cones I collected from my dog’s walk too! Maybe this weekend! Our tree could use a few more ornaments!
I love the cork reindeer!
Hi MaryAnne,
I wouldn’t know where to begin to make that cork reindeer — where do you get all those little corks? — but it is so adorable. Do you need to purchase corks or just collect them all year?!
Very nice–I like the reindeer!
Thanks Asian Mommy!
We missed the craft fair sale or I would have bought one of the reindeer! They do great ornament crafts all made by the kids who stay after school in the day care program.
That reindeer ornament is cute. Now I have a reason to drink more wine!!!!
Hi Monise,
Ah, that’s how they got so many corks … but what about those teeny corks? Where do you get those?
A wreath made out of old guitar strings, and two Xmas trees that my daughter made in a sewing class. I need to use the pine cones I collected from my dog’s walk too! Maybe this weekend