Open Ended Christmas Ornament Crafts for Kids

Homemade One-of-A-Kind Christmas Ornaments

When it comes to crafts, my kids and I are bad at cranking out duplicates of anything. We are easily bored and not good at creating a manufacturing process to maximize uniformity or quantity.

I think that is ok. Our first homemade Christmas ornament came out of serendipity. Someone (his sister?) tried to play my eight-year-old son’s guitar using a pencil as a bow. As a result, the strings were damaged and his guitar teacher had to replace them.

Guitar String Wreath Ornament. The old strings with their slightly springy action seemed to beg to become a wreath.  My son added a tag and voila! Our first homemade DIY Christmas tree ornament. A wire would work as well.

I collected pine cones from walking the dog and purchased glitter, glue (Craft Tacky Glue and Elmer’s Glue), pipe cleaners, googly eyes,  craft sticks in the size of popsicle sticks and craft plastic jewel-like flowers.

I spread them out and let my kids have at it. This is what we made …

Open Ended Christmas Ornament Crafts for Kids

Reindeer Pine Cone Christmas Tree Ornament using googly eyes, glitter, red flowers, and pine cones. My kids don’t think it looks like Rudolph either. They are very unimpressed by my creation.

Craft Stick Snowflake Ornament. The Snowflake Ornaments I saw on Pinterest were beautiful. Red Ted Art used old buttons. We used those plastic flower jewels glued onto popsicle sticks using the Craft Tacky Glue. It’s a little thicker than Elmer’s so it holds better and dries faster. I think this snowflake ornament is my favorite but I could not interest my kids into making any.

Glittery Pine Cone Ornaments. Using a pine cone to decorate with just glitter would have worked much better than trying to glue on the flower doodads. They kept falling off even with the Craft Tacky Glue.

Here’s the pine cone with just glitter. My kids liked making these.

Craft Stick Treasure Box. This is typically what happens when we make crafts. PickyKidPix decided she wanted to make a special box to hold treasures for her brother’s Christmas present. She used up all the rest of the craft sticks and Craft Tacky Glue. Naturally, her siblings want to make craft stick boxes too. I need to get more craft sticks and glue. No one seems interested in the pine cones, glitter or sparkly flower doodads.

This is the craft my kids wanted to do. Next year, I will buy lots more craft sticks and 3 bottles of Craft Tacky Glue and let them make boxes to their hearts’ content. Perhaps they will decorate them as well. They wanted to gift these boxes to each other for special treasure collecting.

Popsicle stick Ornament

Just craft sticks, glue and glitter.

Christmas Tree Fabric Tree Ornaments. This  DIY Christmas Tree ornament is from PickyKidPix. She sewed them in her very first sewing class. If you don’t have a sewing machine — we don’t — you can use fabric glue or needle and thread along with felt, ribbon, and fabric. I think the fabric selection is key. Next year, I’ll try to stock up on fabric. I may even spring for a sewing machine! I need felt too!

Sparkly Yarn Ball Christmas Tree Ornament

PickyKidPix, my 5th grader, came home with this lovely ornament she made in class. It’s beautiful. I pressed her for details:

• Blow up a small balloon.
• Wrap yarn around the balloon.
• Use a foam brush to wet the yarn with a mixture of Elmer’s Glue and water. Proportions: unclear. I’d try 1/2 and 1/2.
• Let dry overnight.
• Brush the yarn again with the glue mixture and roll it into sparkly glitter.
• Let dry completely.
• Carefully pop the balloon and remove it.
• Add a loop to hang. You can use yarn or anything you want.

I would make these next year with the kids. They turned out beautifully! You can make them as large or as small as you want. We have tons of yarn so it would be easy in terms of supplies. Oh, I need round balloons for this. (My issue is that I never have the right stuff.)

So there you have it. Admittedly, I am bad at doing crafts with my kids. We had fun creating these though and the next go-round, I’ll have more craft sticks and thicker glue.

Craft Tacky Glue, $4.85

Glitter, $2.60

Craft Sticks, $4.40

Pipe Cleaners, $5.08

Googly Eyes, $1.31

Flower Rhinestones from Lakeshore Learning, $14.95

 Supplies for ornament crafts can be purchased by clicking on image.

To examine any of the items listed, please click on image of item.

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